Manufacturing Engineering Intern - Summer 2027
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 Summer Internship Program
Internships at Antares are anything but ordinary. You'll work alongside our team as we design, build, and test fission microreactors built to deliver reliable energy for critical missions on Earth, in space, and underwater.
Our interns contribute to real work from day one. Depending on your role, you may touch hardware, write and test software, support manufacturing and operations, or help build the systems that allow Antares to move quickly as we scale. You'll work alongside engineers, operators, and other experts solving challenging problems—and you'll leave your internship with hands-on experience that's difficult to find anywhere else.
We work hard, move quickly, and take pride in what we're building. If you're excited to learn by doing and want to contribute to the next generation of nuclear energy, we'd love to have you join us next summer.
We will be running two separate cohorts to accommodate students on both semester and quarter schedules:
Cohort #1
Monday, May 17 – Friday, August 13
Cohort #2
Monday, June 14 – Friday, September 10
All internship roles are based at our Torrance headquarters and require interns to work onsite five days per week. We will not be considering candidates for remote or hybrid arrangements.
Interns will receive a relocation and housing stipend as part of their offer package.
About the Team
The Manufacturing team turns engineering designs into repeatable, safe, and well-documented build processes. The team partners with design, test, quality, supply chain, and operations to prepare development hardware, execute builds, capture learning, and improve how work is performed as Antares scales.
As a Manufacturing Engineering Intern, you will contribute directly to development and test builds. You will help create the work instructions and concepts of operations needed to execute hardware safely and consistently, while gaining hands-on experience in a fast-moving engineering and manufacturing environment.
Roles and Responsibilities:
Help develop, revise, and release clear manufacturing work instructions for development and test hardware.
Support the planning and execution of test builds, including build readiness, materials, tools, sequencing, and documentation.
Develop concepts of operations (CONOPS) that define build objectives, roles, workflow, safety considerations, and expected outcomes.
Lead defined portions of test and development builds under the guidance of manufacturing engineers.
Perform hands-on assembly, integration, inspection, and test support as appropriate for the assigned hardware and training.
Capture build data, deviations, issues, and lessons learned; translate findings into improved instructions and processes.
Partner with design, test, quality, and operations teams to resolve build issues and incorporate manufacturability feedback.
Maintain an organized, safe, and quality-focused work environment while following applicable procedures and controls.
Basic Qualifications:
Currently pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering or another relevant engineering or technical discipline.
Hands-on experience through coursework, a student design team, research, employment, or personal technical projects.
Ability to communicate technical information clearly in written instructions and verbal updates.
Ability to work collaboratively and learn in a hands-on manufacturing and test environment.
Preferred Skills & Experience:
Experience creating procedures, work instructions, build plans, test plans, or other technical documentation.
Experience assembling, fabricating, integrating, or testing mechanical hardware.
Familiarity with engineering drawings, CAD, GD&T, bills of materials, or manufacturing process documentation.
Experience collecting test data, documenting nonconformances or build issues, and communicating results.
Participation in Formula SAE, Baja SAE, rocketry, robotics, maker, laboratory, or comparable hands-on project work.
Comfort working through ambiguity, asking precise questions, and taking ownership of defined deliverables.
Additional Requirements:
Ability to follow required safety procedures and use assigned personal protective equipment in manufacturing, laboratory, and test environments.
Location
We are located in Torrance, CA in a 322,000 square foot, brand new facility featuring large open spaces for team collaboration, R&D, and production, as well as easy access to the 405, 105, and 110 freeways. Our facility is in the heart of Los Angeles' vibrant emerging tech ecosystem alongside many other high growth startups and enterprises.
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”
Go Where the Work Is - Never miss a chance to meet a customer, user, or stakeholder face to face, even if that means hopping on a plane. If you can’t make it, find a teammate who can channel your intentions and go in your place. Deep work can be done from anywhere, but we believe teams are built in person, and aim to maximize our time together
Operate in the Grey - Embrace nuance in pursuit of truth. Question every fundamental assumption
Equal Opportunity
Antares is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.
ITAR Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.