Business Operations Manager

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.

Formed in 2023, the Antares team hails from SpaceX, The White House, MIT, Rigetti Computing, The Air Force, General Atomics, Relativity Space, Ursa Major, Ultra Safe Nuclear, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Antares has raised over $39M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has over $4M in government funding.

About the Team

As an early member of the operations team, you will enable the business to rapidly scale and will serve as a force multiplier across many critical functions. At a high level, you will be responsible for defining, documenting, iterating, scaling, and executing business processes in areas such as: financial modeling and spend forecasting, supply chain planning and procurement, business development, communications and marketing, facilities management, and more.

The ideal candidate will be able to execute in an ambiguous environment, with the ability to wear many ‘hats’ day-to-day - as we are a growing company, the operations team will continue to expand in scope, and this individual will play a defining role in creating the foundational processes and systems required to achieve our ambitious goals on an accelerated timeline.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Bridge across engineering, supply chain, production, and test functions to identify and resolve issues creating latency in communication, decision-making, and handoffs

• Create and maintain program schedules for engineering milestones to highlight critical path and ensure coordination across all involved functions

• Partner closely with finance leadership to develop, operationalize, and maintain both high-level and granular financial models ranging from operating plans to bottoms-up cost estimates

• Influence the systems roadmap by defining requirements with functional owners, assessing available third-party solutions, and conferring with software engineering on internal options

• Support commercial and government business development efforts including market analysis, customer outreach, establishing partnerships, and contract creation

• Collaborate with functional owners to define key performance indicators (KPIs), and create appropriate metrics and reporting to measure progress

• Develop, document, and iterate processes across multiple functions, applying consistent scrutiny to challenge requirements or eliminate unnecessary steps

• Fill gaps on the team where we have not yet hired subject matter experts, serving as a generalist to support the business in areas such as: compliance, tax, accounting, facilities, logistics, contracting, sales, marketing, etc.

• Enable supply chain and manufacturing teams to execute near-term actions and conserve program schedules

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, math, physics, business, finance, or information systems AND 5+ years in consulting, business operations, manufacturing, or business development

• OR 8+ years of experience in consulting, business operations, manufacturing, supply chain, or business development

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Nuclear Engineering

• Masters or PhD degree in Engineering

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

• Excellent written, visual, and verbal communication skills

• Excellent negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills

• Must be a strong team player with the ability to develop effective relationships with internal and external customers

Additional Requirements:

• 3+ years of business operations experience in an engineering or technical organization

• Demonstrated history of excelling in multiple functions, particularly without prior experience or knowledge

• Proven track record of leading high impact projects or accomplishments

• Ability to balance day-to-day tactical execution and long-term strategic steering

• Experience using various systems including ERP, MRP, project management software, financial software, and others

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

• Experience scaling a startup, and working in hardware

Location

• We are located in Torrance, CA in a 145,000 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.