About the teamWe are looking for a Manufacturing Engineer to take lead on the assembly of our full scale, full power reactor on-site at Antares Prime. This person would work with design, quality, supply chain, and many other teams to provide DFM to design, define build processes, procure capital equipment and tooling, execute development builds, and ultimately launch production of the R1 nuclear reactor.
Role & Responsibilities• Own manufacturing process development for major reactor assemblies and subsystems
from engineering release through build, inspection, test, and final integration.
• Develop detailed assembly and manufacturing process flows, including shop floor
layouts
• Partner closely with mechanical, electrical, nuclear, systems, materials, quality, and test
engineers to ensure designs are manufacturable, inspectable, and testable.
• Develop and mature tooling, fixtures, handling equipment, and specialized
manufacturing equipment required to build reactor hardware.
• Establish robust processes for first-of-a-kind hardware, balancing immediate prototype
needs with the long-term requirements of a scalable production system.
• Work directly with manufacturing technicians and operators on the floor to
troubleshoot build issues, improve processes, and incorporate lessons learned.
• Develop and maintain manufacturing bills of material (mBOMs), process plans, and
configuration-controlled manufacturing documentation.
• Participate in manufacturing readiness reviews, design reviews, production readiness
reviews, and hardware build reviews.
• Mentor junior and mid-level manufacturing engineers and help establish a culture of
technical rigor, ownership, and continuous improvement.
Basic Qualifications• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial, Aerospace, Nuclear, or a
related engineering discipline.
• 2+ years of experience developing and implementing manufacturing processes for
complex hardware.
• Demonstrated experience taking hardware from engineering design through prototype,
development, qualification, and production.
• Extensive experience creating manufacturing documentation, including work
instructions, process specifications, assembly procedures, inspection plans, and test
procedures.
• Strong understanding of GD&T, tolerance analysis, engineering drawings, and
configuration management.
• Experience working directly with technicians, machinists, fabricators, inspectors, and
production personnel.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot manufacturing problems on the floor and drive issues
through root cause, corrective action, and process improvement.
• Strong understanding of DFM/DFA principles and the ability to effectively influence
design decisions.
• Experience developing or implementing manufacturing tooling, fixtures, and specialized
equipment.
• Ability to work effectively across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, test,
and operations organizations.
• Strong technical communication skills and the ability to clearly document complex
processes.
• Ability to operate independently in a fast-paced, highly technical, and ambiguous
environment, while maintaining exceptional attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ownership of large, technically complex projects with significant cross-
functional impact.
Preferred Skills & Experience• 5+ years of experience developing and implementing manufacturing processes for
complex hardware.
• Experience with aerospace or nuclear reactor components, pressure vessels,
primary/secondary systems, fuel systems, thermal systems, or reactor instrumentation
and controls.
• Experience developing manufacturing processes subject to nuclear quality assurance
requirements or other rigorous quality/regulatory frameworks.
• Working knowledge of ASME Section III, NQA-1, or comparable nuclear quality
requirements.
• Experience with process qualification and validation for special processes.
• Experience with PFMEA, process capability studies, statistical process control, value-
stream mapping, and capacity analysis.
• Experience developing manufacturing processes for safety-significant or safety-critical
hardware.
• Experience transitioning low-volume prototype hardware into repeatable production.
• Familiarity with manufacturing execution systems, ERP/MRP systems, PLM systems, and
digital work-instruction platforms.
• Experience working in an environment where configuration control, traceability,
material control, and process documentation are critical to product acceptance.
CultureAt Antares, we like to specifically tie each role to our founding document's set of values-here are the top five cultural values we think you should believe at your core to be successful:
- Think in Systems - Energy and Defense are complex ecosystems with numerous stakeholders with competing priorities, conflicting policies, perverse incentives, and emergent and path-dependent properties. First principles thinking alone is insufficient. Think probabilistically and then take action. "If you want to be certain, then you are apt to be obsolete." Over-optimizing the components often degrades the system
- Obsess over the End User - 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
