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Salary: USD 145,000 - 185,000 / annual
Antares is building mass-producible, inherently safe, deployable microreactors for terrestrial, underwater, and space applications. The company has raised over $600M in venture capital and holds hundreds of millions in contracts with military services, NASA, and the Department of Energy. The team includes veterans from SpaceX, the Pentagon, Department of Energy, MIT, and national laboratories.
As a Senior Structural Engineer, you will own stress analysis and structural dynamics for space nuclear systems, including reactors, spacecraft, radiators, payloads, and support hardware. You will combine stress analysis, structural dynamics, test planning, and hands-on development support for first-of-a-kind space and lunar reactor programs.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own stress analysis and structural dynamics for space nuclear hardware at component, assembly, subsystem, and vehicle levels
- Support mechanical design and perform structural design work for brackets, panels, reactor support structures, radiator structures, and payload interfaces
- Perform hand calculations and rapid analytical assessments for stress, stiffness, margin, load paths, bolted joints, welds, and structural stability
- Build, correlate, and maintain finite element models across multiple scales
- Run detailed structural analyses including static strength, stiffness, modal, random vibration, acoustic, coupled loads, thermal stress, fatigue, and shock assessments
- Support coupled thermal-structural analysis for space nuclear systems
- Define structural analysis plans, load cases, boundary conditions, and verification approaches
- Develop plans for launch loads derivation, test loads definition, and qualification strategy
- Work with systems teams to interpret launch provider environments and flow loads into design requirements
- Specify and own vibration, modal, acoustic, and structural development tests
- Own vibration test planning and execution, including fixture design, instrumentation, test procedures, data review, and post-test correlation
- Support procurement and operation of in-house vibration test capability
- Participate in design reviews, test readiness reviews, failure reviews, and customer-facing technical reviews
- Drive root-cause investigations for structural failures and test anomalies
- Develop reusable analysis methods, templates, and workflows
You will work closely with mechanical design, thermal, reactor, manufacturing, test, and systems engineering teams. The role requires practical engineering judgment, comfort with incomplete requirements, and the ability to define credible structural paths for hardware that must survive launch, space environments, thermal gradients, and nuclear-system integration constraints.
The company is located in Torrance, CA in a 322,000 square foot facility with easy access to major freeways, positioned in Los Angeles' emerging tech ecosystem.
REQUIREMENTS:
Basic Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Civil/Structural Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, or related technical discipline
- 5+ years of experience in structural analysis, stress analysis, structural dynamics, aerospace structures, spacecraft hardware, launch vehicle hardware, mechanical systems, or related field
- Strong fundamentals in solid mechanics, strength of materials, structural dynamics, vibration, fatigue, bolted joints, load paths, stiffness, and stability
- Experience building and running finite element models for complex mechanical or aerospace hardware
- Experience analyzing static loads, modal response, random vibration, acoustic environments, fatigue, thermal stress, or coupled structural loads
Preferred Skills & Experience:
- Master's degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, Structural Dynamics, or related field
- Experience with spacecraft, launch vehicles, satellites, payloads, space mechanisms, defense systems, nuclear systems, or high-reliability aerospace hardware
- Experience with launch loads derivation, coupled loads analysis, notching, force limiting, sine vibration, random vibration, acoustic testing, shock testing, modal survey testing, or model correlation
- Experience planning, specifying, and executing vibration, modal, acoustic, or structural qualification/development tests
- Experience owning vibration test campaigns including fixture design, accelerometer placement, control strategy, test procedure development, data interpretation, and post-test model correlation
- Experience selecting, procuring, commissioning, or operating vibration test equipment (electrodynamic or hydraulic shakers, slip tables, amplifiers, controllers, fixtures, instrumentation)
- Experience with FEA tools such as NASTRAN, FEMAP, Patran, Abaqus, ANSYS, HyperMesh, OptiStruct, Simcenter, NX, or equivalent
- Strong familiarity with Python and git-controlled code repositories
- Experience with coupled thermal-structural analysis, CTE mismatch, high-temperature structures, refractory materials, radiator structures, heat pipes, reactor support hardware, or nuclear-adjacent mechanical systems
- Experience with fatigue, fracture mechanics, creep, buckling, nonlinear contact, preload, bolted joint analysis, bonded joints, weldments, or composite structures
- Experience supporting STOP analysis or structural distortion analysis for precision payloads, optical systems, sensors, or thermally sensitive space hardware
- Familiarity with aerospace structural standards, launch provider environment definitions, NASA/DoD test practices, or qualification and acceptance test philosophies
- Experience developing structural verification plans, analysis reports, test plans, test readiness review packages, and design review materials
- Strong practical judgment in early-stage development environments
Additional Requirements:
- Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones
- Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, Refugee, or Asylee, or be eligible to obtain required ITAR authorizations from the U.S. Department of State
