Electrical Engineer Intern

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

Antares is developing compact nuclear reactors to deliver reliable power in the world’s most demanding environments. We’re looking for an Electrical Engineering Intern to support the design and testing of the electrical systems that make those reactors work.

You will begin with focused starter projects before taking ownership of a longer-term project culminating in a technical deliverable and presentation. Interns are integrated into the engineering team and evaluated with expectations similar to those of a first-year junior engineer. The bar for success is high: you will be expected to use your mentor and available resources effectively, execute independently, communicate clearly, and identify additional issues and opportunities for improvement.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Redesign printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) for new reactor systems

• Develop schematics, select components, and support PCB layout and design reviews

• Design electrical harnesses, including wiring diagrams, connector selection, pinouts, and routing

• Build and test prototype boards, harnesses, and electrical assemblies

• Develop and execute hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) tests

• Support the buildout of system-level test infrastructure for hardware qualification.

• Troubleshoot electrical hardware and identify root causes of failures

• Analyze test data and recommend design improvements

• Create clear design, test, and configuration documentation

• Work closely with electrical, mechanical, controls, and test engineers to integrate designs into larger systems

Basic Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field

• 6+ months experience of technical engineering skills outside of the university setting classroom (eg: laboratory, research, extracurricular project teams, volunteering, personal projects or prior internship/work experience)

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Familiarity with circuit design, schematics, and PCB development

• Experience building, testing, or debugging electrical hardware through coursework, a student team, research, or personal projects

• Understanding of common electrical test equipment, such as oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies, and logic analyzers

• Ability to read electrical drawings, datasheets, and technical documentation

• Strong problem-solving skills and a willingness to work directly with hardware

• Clear written and verbal communication

• Experience with Altium Designer or another PCB design tool

• Experience designing cable harnesses or selecting connectors

• Familiarity with embedded systems, microcontrollers, or common communication protocols

• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing or automated test systems

• Familiarity with Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or similar test and analysis tools

• Experience working on a Formula SAE, rocketry, robotics, CubeSat, or other hands-on engineering team

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.