Mechanical Design Engineer I/II - Space

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 As a Level I or Level II Mechanical Design Engineer in the Mission Engineering team, you will support hardware design and development associated with nuclear power systems in space and on the surface of the Moon and Mars. As an engineer on the space team, you will be expected to support team members, own development tests, and component design. You will be responsible for your product or deliverable, interfaces to and from other systems, how your hardware fits into the larger system, sourcing, building, testing, and designing improvements for a first of a kind system. You’ll support trades on system layout, interfaces, packaging, working closely with cross-disciplinary teams to refine configurations and close design loops. Your responsibilities will span CAD design, system analysis, design reviews, precise definition of thermal and mechanical interfaces, requirements ownership and decomposition, and manufacturability / scalability of your design. Roles and Responsibilities: - Own hardware or deliverable related hardware as part of the larger space nuclear system. - Drive requirements definition/decomposition, build/test cycles, defend decisions across all phases of design, take concept through CDR and onward. - Own CAD models, manage configurations, produce drawings, DFMEA, etc. - Support development testing, test setup, test definition, test documentation. - Coordinate closely with other teams/people (nuclear, thermal, structures, manufacturing, quality) to ensure a system architecture that satisfies mission/product requirements. - Develop a clean sheet design through hardware procurement and dev/qual testing. - Support design reviews and integration/test planning for hardware, define manufacturing plan and generate work instructions as needed. - Own or support the design of tooling/ ground support equipment and facility upgrades - Develop and document emerging processes. Basic Qualifications: - Bachelor’s degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering, or a related physics-based field. - 1-3+ years of experience in space system/product mechanical design, system configuration and layout. - Expertise with CAD (e.g., NX, CATIA) and past experience with PLM and other manufacturing planning and management systems. Preferred Skills & Experience: - Master’s or PhD in mechanical or aerospace engineering, or a related physics-based field. - Experience in the design, analysis, and integration of space hardware. - Leadership experience on a project or research team. - Strong project management skills, cross discipline communication, and interpersonal and collaborative skills. - Exceptional communication skills to work effectively across teams and convey technical information to non-specialists. - Understanding of fundamentals in fluid systems, solid mechanics, and heat transfer. - Demonstrated track record of initiative and going the extra mile. - Knowledge of materials science, material selections, and material compatibility. - Ability to conduct system sizing, first-order engineering analyses - Mechanical design and GD&T/ drawings experience; take a…