Senior Accountant

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 Team Antares is building its Finance & Accounting organization to support the company's transition from research and development into manufacturing and commercial deployment. As a Senior Accountant, you will be one of the early members of the accounting team and play a key role in building the processes, systems, and financial infrastructure required to scale Antares. This is a highly hands on role with broad exposure across the business. You will own significant portions of the monthly close and financial reporting process while working across technical accounting, government contracts, cost accounting, fixed assets, and financial systems. You won't be joining a large accounting organization where you own one narrow piece of the process. You'll have the opportunity to take meaningful ownership from day one, work directly with Finance leadership, and help build the accounting function as Antares scales from development into production.   Roles and Responsibilities: You will be responsible for: - Own key areas of the monthly, quarterly, and annual close process, including journal entries, accruals, account reconciliations, supporting schedules, and variance analysis. - Maintain accurate general ledger accounts and proactively investigate and resolve accounting discrepancies. - Own balance sheet reconciliations and support monthly financial statement and management reporting. - Support the preparation of GAAP financial statements and related reporting packages. - Manage accounting for assigned areas such as cash, prepaid expenses, fixed assets, accounts payable, payroll, accruals, and other balance sheet and P&L accounts. - Support annual financial statement audits, tax filings, and other compliance activities, including preparing schedules and working directly with external auditors and advisors. - Help develop and document accounting policies, procedures, internal controls, and close processes as the company scales. - Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Operations, People, and other teams to ensure transactions are accurately recorded and appropriately supported. - Support accounting for government contracts, including project costs, labor, indirect costs, billing, and related compliance requirements. - Help build Antares' manufacturing and inventory accounting processes as the company transitions into reactor production, including inventory, WIP, capitalization, overhead allocation, and cost accounting. - Support technical accounting matters including revenue recognition, leases, stock-based compensation, and other complex or non-routine transactions. - Help implement and improve accounting systems, ERP tools, and automation to increase the accuracy, scalability, and efficiency of financial processes. - Identify opportunities to improve existing accounting processes rather than simply operating them. - Take ownership of new accounting workstreams and special projects as the company continues to scale.   Basic Qualifications: - Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field. - 4+ years of progressive accounting or audit experience in public accounting, industry, or a combination of both. - Strong understanding of U.S. GAAP and fundamental accounting principles. - Experience owning components of a monthly close, including journal entries, accruals, and balance sheet reconciliations. - Experience preparing or supporting financial statements and financial statement audits.   Preferred Skills & Experience: - 2–4 years of accounting or audit experience. - Big 4 or other public accounting experience. - CPA or progress toward CPA certification. - Experience at a high-growth, venture-backed company. - Experience in aerospace, defense, nuclear, manufacturing, or another hard-tech industry. - Experience with manufacturing, inventory, fixed assets, or cost accounting. - Exposure to government contracting, DCAA compliance, FAR/DFARS, or government grant accounting. - Experience supporting or managing a financial statement audit. - Knowledge of ASC 606 revenue recognition, ASC 842 lease accounting, and ASC 718 stock-based compensation. - Experience with QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or another ERP/accounting system. - Experience with Ramp or other modern AP and expense-management platforms. - Experience implementing or improving accounting systems, processes, and internal controls. - Interest in using technology and automation to improve accounting processes. - Strong Excel skills and comfort working with large and complex datasets. - Strong attention to detail with the ability to understand how individual transactions flow through the broader financial statements. - Ability to independently manage multiple priorities and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment. - Strong written and verbal communication skills.   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 https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987.