Manufacturing Engineer II-Senior, Assembly & Integration

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 team We 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, a…