Nuclear Instrumentation & Controls Engineer

The posting, as Antares wrote it

About Us

At Antares, our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant from Earth to the Asteroid Belt. We’re fueled by the belief that advanced nuclear energy can strengthen our military, solve the climate crisis, elevate global living standards, and expand humanity's presence in outer space. To achieve our mission, we’re building mass-producible, inherently safe, deployable microreactors that can be used terrestrially, underwater, and in space.

The Antares team hails from SpaceX, the White House, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, MIT, Rigetti Computing, General Atomics, Relativity Space, Ursa Major, and National Laboratories like Idaho, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Savannah River. Antares has raised over $600M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has hundreds of million-dollars on contract with the military services, NASA, and the Department of Energy.

About the Role

Antares is seeking a Nuclear Instrumentation & Controls Engineer to support the development, integration, testing, and qualification of nuclear measurement systems and reactor instrumentation across our reactor programs. This engineer will be responsible for designing and operating test platforms, developing automated testing capabilities, and executing instrumentation selection, verification, and qualification campaigns.

The role will support neutron detectors, nuclear measurement electronics, thermal sensors, and other reactor instrumentation operating in demanding nuclear and environmental conditions. This position will expand our engineering capacity to enable concurrent terrestrial and space reactor development, supporting Antares' mission to deliver reliable nuclear power to mission-critical applications.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Nuclear, Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and Controls engineering teams to develop, integrate, and qualify nuclear instrumentation and control systems.
• Design, build, and operate hardware-in-the-loop test platforms and automated test stands for nuclear measurement systems, sensors, and associated electronics.
• Develop and execute test plans for neutron detectors, nuclear measurement electronics, thermocouples, resistance temperature detectors, pressure transducers, and other reactor instrumentation.
• Perform sensor characterization, calibration, and performance testing, including measurement accuracy, response time, signal integrity, stability, and long-term drift.
• Design and execute environmental qualification testing involving radiation sources, thermal chambers, thermal vacuum, vibration, shock, and other representative operating conditions.
• Develop and maintain automated test software interfacing with data acquisition systems, instrumentation, and commercial or custom control and data handling hardware.
• Translate engineering requirements into test objectives, acceptance criteria, procedures, and verification activities for individual components and integrated instrume

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• The customer and end user are often not the same. We will never build globally competitive commercial products if we lose sight of our end users and their entire interaction with the product life cycle
• Be Unconstrained by Convention - Our only limits are the laws of physics. Many, even experts, will say what we are working on is impossible. They said the same about SpaceX reusing rockets. Generationally impactful companies, by definition, must accomplish the seemingly impossible. If it were easy, it would have already been done. Never shy away from a solution because it has never been tried before, and never choose to do something because that's “how it's always been done”
• Go Where the Work Is - Never miss a chance to meet a customer, user, or stakeholder face to face, even if that means hopping on a plane. If you can’t make it, find a teammate who can channel your intentions and go in your place. Deep work can be done from anywhere, but we believe teams are built in person, and aim to maximize our time together
• Operate in the Grey - Embrace nuance in pursuit of truth. Question every fundamental assumption

Equal Opportunity

Antares is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.

ITAR REQUIREMENTS

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987.