Business Development 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. 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 seeking a Business Development Manager to help build the U.S. commercial market for its microreactors. This person will identify and evaluate potential customers and applications across energy-intensive industries, translate broad market opportunities into specific projects, and advance those projects toward commercial agreements. This is not solely a lead-generation or sales role. The Business Development Manager will assess the full set of factors that determine whether a project can succeed, including customer requirements, energy needs, project economics, permitting, domestic energy policy, state and federal incentives, financing, siting, and Antares' technical and cost assumptions. The Manager will work across Antares, particularly with Finance and Engineering, and coordinate with Regulatory, Government Affairs, and company leadership to develop opportunity maps and clear strategies for advancing priority projects. The role will both originate new customer relationships and develop opportunities identified by Antares' leadership. While the role is primarily focused on the U.S. commercial market, the Manager will also support Antares’ international business development efforts by providing market, project, economic, and commercial analysis for prospective international opportunities. Success will mean building a strong pipeline, converting potential use cases and prospects into named projects, strengthening customer relationships, and advancing promising opportunities toward commercial agreements. Roles and Responsibilities: - Identify, qualify, and develop commercial microreactor opportunities across energy-intensive sectors in the United States. - Originate new customer relationships while also developing opportunities identified by Antares' leadership. - Build relationships with prospective customers and lead early discussions about their energy needs, project requirements, and potential applications for Antares' technology. - Convert broad market opportunities and customer interest into specific, actionable projects. - Develop opportunity maps that address customer needs, decision-makers, power requirements, project economics, permitting pathways, policy considerations, state and federal incentives, financing, siting, and execution risks. - Work closely with Finance and Engineering to evaluate project economics, technical requirements, cost assumptions, financing approaches, and potential commercial structures. - Support the international business development team by leveraging the market analysis, project economics, commercial assessments, and other decision-making materials needed to evaluate and advance international commercial opportunities adjacent to the commercial sectors pursued domestically. - Coordinate across Finance, Engineering, Regulatory, Government Affairs, and company leadership to evaluate project feasibility and advance priority opportunities. - Partner with Government Affairs to understand domestic energy policy, identify applicable state and federal incentives, and address policy barriers affecting commercial projects. - Develop customer presentations, proposals, market analyses, briefing materials, and recommendations for company leadership. - Maintain a disciplined commercial pipeline and provide clear assessments of opportunity quality, maturity, risks, and next steps. - Support customer negotiations and the development of commercial agreements. - Represent Antares at customer meetings, site visits, conferences, and other external engagements. Basic Qualifications: - Bachelor's degree - 5+ years of relevant experience in business development, project development, commercial strategy, energy policy, or a related field. - Demonstrated ability to identify, evaluate, and advance complex commercial opportunities. Preferred Skills & Experience: - Bachelor's degree in a STEM field is strongly preferred - Strong understanding of domestic energy policy, permitting processes, and state and federal incentives. - Ability to assess customer needs, project economics, market conditions, and execution risks. - Strong analytical and organizational skills. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience developing customer presentations, market analyses, and recommendations for senior leadership. - Ability to establish and maintain productive relationships with customers and other external stakeholders. - Ability to work effectively across technical, financial, regulatory, policy, and commercial teams. - Strong work ethic and willingness to take ownership of opportunities from initial identification through subsequent stages of development. - Experience in energy, infrastructure, permitting, or commercial project development - Experience developing complex physical infrastructure projects or working in regulated markets with long development and sales cycles. - Familiarity with the U.S. electricity sector and the commercial considerations associated with onsite power generation. - Experience working with state or federal energy programs and incentives. - Familiarity with nuclear energy or advanced energy technologies is a plus. Additional Requirements: • Ability to travel up to 25% for customer meetings, site visits, conferences, and other business-development activities. • Ability to work from Antares' Washington, DC office. 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.