Control Application and Systems Engineer

Los Angeles, CA, United States

About Us

At Antares, we're fueled by the belief that energy abundance and military strength are the keys to unlocking growth in the American standard of living. Antares is building mass-producible nuclear energy, with a path to achieve scale by starting with the U.S. Military as their first adopter. We solve the energy constraints of contested logistics by developing inherently safe, rapidly deployable nuclear microreactors that can be operated terrestrially or in space, thus untethering from fossil fuel supply chains and creating energy abundance for our nation's military. Our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant from Earth to the Asteroid Belt.

The founding team hails from SpaceX, The White House, MIT, Rigetti Computing, and The Air Force. They have raised over $8M in capital from top-tier investors, including Caffeinated Capital and Susa Ventures.

About the Role

As the founding member of the Controls Engineering team, you will be Antares' expert on control systems. You will work on designing and building the systems that operate, regulate, and report the telemetry of our microreactor. You will help develop and document our system architecture, requirements, control algorithms, and mechanisms. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of full-stack sensor and control projects and will have at least a light background in robotics. Additionally, you will provide nuanced input into the system architecture trades and take a lead role in managing vendor relationships and our test program.

Roles and Responsibilities

Survey COTS and potentially perform low-level design of sensor solutions/suites for thermal control, actuation, and neutron-flux monitoring systems

This includes selection and simulation of analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters

Regularly distill reactor core performance needs, benchmarks, and measured capability into controls systems constraints and tasks

Design, analyze, and field test nuclear reaction-monitoring technologies

Assist in development of truth models pertaining to fission reaction cores

Perform routine system identification of reactor core subsystems and sensors

Design, implement and deploy time-domain simulations pertaining to controls systems sensors, relevant plant dynamics and low-level algorithm implementation

Discipline simulations with data and fits obtained from system identification

Design, prototype and implement monte carlo simulation software for reactor core dynamics

Design, prototype and implement controls software in embedded and application-layer environments

Verification and validation of all controls subsystems and applications

Establish telemetry standards and interfaces for all reactor core sensor and controls subsystems

Construct and maintain Interface Control Documents for internal and external systems interacting with the reactor core

Basic Requirements

5+ years experience working in an environment with hardware-software co-design including the following:

Handling, recording, and analysis of digital and analog telemetry from sensor and controls subsystems

Experience with ethernet, CAN, serial and 4-20 mA telemetry variants

Experience with logic analyzers, data acquisition modules, oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers

Experience debugging impedance matching issues in the context of controls systems

Experience debugging and modeling EMI and radiation issues in the context of controls systems

Experience developing linear servo, field-oriented-control, and other similar actuation controls systems

Experience writing controls algorithms in an embedded C/C++ environment with strict timing requirements

Experience with ADC and DAC driver configuration in an embedded C/C++ environment

Constructing models of sensor and control system frontends in software and time-domain simulation environments

High level of experience with linear transfer function analysis

High level of experience converting continuous time domain, frequency domain and discrete-time models between one another

High level of experience constructing and conducting system identification exercises for components of a control system and synthesizing high-fidelity models for Monte Carlo simulation purposes

Understanding of nonlinear dynamics and how to identify them in analysis space as well as in field data

Ability to identify the feasibility of SISO, MISO, and MIMO control topologies for a given application

High level of experience separating, evaluating, and benchmarking (through simulation and field testing) cross-coupled dynamics between parallel control systems

Experience with Kalman filtering and sensor fusion

Experience with fault-tolerant architecture and design

Expertise in Python, and C++, particularly prototyping in Python followed by conversion to application and embedded C++ environments

Experience with matlab

Desired Qualifications

Strong interpersonal and collaborative skills, enthusiasm for problem-solving, and desire to optimize modern nuclear design and operation.

Master's degree or 5+ years of professional experience in electrical or computer engineering.

Leadership experience on a project or research team.

Demonstrated track record of high impact / ROI contributions

Additional Requirements

Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones

Culture

At 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."

Craftsmen - We also focus on the inputs. We aspire to high-quality engineering for its own sake. As such, we invest in personal growth, learning, and developing a long-term career path for exceptional individual contributors. We embrace a beginner's mindset, share knowledge, and never condescend the curious.

Loyally Collaborative - Team > Self. We win together. There is nothing more precious than a high-performing team.

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