Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Fabrication

The role

You will own the development and maturation of manufacturing processes for critical reactor hardware. You will work across design, materials, quality, and manufacturing to turn designs into hardware and establish repeatable production processes.

What you will do

• Own fabrication processes for critical Antares reactor components and assemblies.
• Develop and improve fabrication processes including welding, CNC machining, metal forming, additive manufacturing, brazing, and diffusion bonding.
• Develop manufacturing methods for first-of-a-kind hardware.
• Partner with design and materials engineering to influence component design and requirements.
• Lead DFM reviews and identify manufacturing risks.
• Define manufacturing sequences, process parameters, tooling requirements, inspection methods, and process controls.
• Develop manufacturing plans, work instructions, process specifications, and qualification documentation.
• Execute process qualification plans using dimensional inspection, metallography, mechanical testing, and NDT.
• Work hands-on with technicians, machinists, welders, and inspectors to troubleshoot problems.
• Lead root-cause investigations and corrective actions for manufacturing defects.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Materials Science/Engineering, Welding Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• 5+ years of professional experience in manufacturing engineering, fabrication, manufacturing process development, or complex hardware development.
• Technical depth in at least one of the following: Welding, CNC machining, Metal Forming, Brazing, Metal Additive Manufacturing, or other advanced metallic fabrication or joining processes.
• Broad working knowledge of metallic manufacturing processes and interactions between material, design, process, tooling, and inspection requirements.
• Experience independently developing, troubleshooting, and implementing manufacturing processes for complex hardware.
• Experience taking manufacturing processes from initial development into production or process qualification.
• Strong understanding of engineering drawings, GD&T, tolerance analysis, material specifications, and manufacturing requirements.
• Experience performing root-cause analysis and resolving complex manufacturing problems.
• Ability to work effectively across design engineering, materials, quality, manufacturing, and production teams.

Nice to have

• 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.

About the company

Antares is building mass-producible, inherently safe, deployable microreactors to make clean energy abundant. The team includes members from SpaceX, the White House, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, and various National Laboratories.