Senior Antenna Engineer

Specter

$130K — $155K *
Telecommunications & Hardware
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or higher in electrical engineering, applied physics, or electromagnetics.
  • 5+ years designing antennas for production hardware, with experience from concept to volume manufacture.
  • In-depth knowledge of electromagnetics, including radiation mechanisms, impedance matching, and efficiency trade-offs.
  • Proficiency in full-wave EM simulation tools like HFSS, CST, or FEKO.
  • Hands-on RF measurement experience using VNA, spectrum analyzer, and conducting chamber tests.
  • Experience with mechanically constrained product design, ideal for handsets, IoT devices, or vehicles.
  • Strong communication skills to articulate technical details to diverse teams.

Responsibilities

  • Lead antenna architecture, design, and integration for multiple platforms.
  • Develop antennas tailored for various technologies such as sub-GHz mesh and LTE.
  • Conduct full-wave electromagnetic simulations and validate against actual measurements.
  • Design antennas to fit into compact enclosures alongside other tech components.
  • Create strategies for multi-radio performance and coexistence.
  • Establish comprehensive antenna measurement processes and protocols.
  • Analyze performance discrepancies using data from simulations, lab tests, and field telemetry.

Benefits

  • Flexible work environment with remote opportunities.
  • Professional development and continuous learning support.
  • Health and wellness programs including medical, dental, and vision coverage.
  • Retirement savings plan with company matching contributions.
  • Employee assistance programs for personal and professional support.
Full Job Description
The Role

Specter is hiring a Senior Antenna Engineer to own the radiating hardware at the edge of our wireless platform; every antenna on every sensor, access point and mothernode we ship. The 1 km wireless range our customers depend on is bought at the antenna, and so is the reliability of the video link that rides on it.

This is a hands-on role with end-to-end ownership: architecture, electromagnetic simulation, prototyping, chamber measurement, certification support, and the correlation between what the model predicted and what a deployed fleet actually does in the field.

What you'll own
  • Lead antenna architecture, design, simulation, prototyping, integration, and validation for ground-based and airborne products.
  • Develop antennas for sensors, access points, and mothernodes across technologies such as sub-GHz mesh (902-928 MHz), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, command-and-control, LTE, CBRS, and GNSS
  • Drive full-wave electromagnetic simulation in HFSS, CST, or FEKO: modeling enclosure, radome, chassis, and nearby structures, and correlating predicted performance against measured hardware
  • Design antennas into severely constrained enclosures shared with cameras, compute modules, batteries, cabling, and four other radios
  • Develop multi-radio isolation and coexistence strategy
  • Build out antenna measurement capability end-to-end: return loss, impedance, isolation, efficiency, gain, radiation patterns, polarization, and total radiated performance across bench, chamber, and installed configurations
  • Close the loop from simulation to chamber to field, using link telemetry from hundreds of deployed nodes to make predicted performance match installed performance
  • Drive antennas into production: supplier specification, tolerance and variation analysis, incoming inspection criteria, and the measurements that catch a bad build before it ships
  • Root-cause RF performance issues spanning antenna, radio, mechanical, and environmental domains, using simulation, bench measurement, chamber data, and field telemetry
What you'll bring
  • Bachelor's or higher in electrical engineering, applied physics, or electromagnetics.
  • 5+ years designing antennas for production hardware : you've taken at least one antenna from concept through measurement, certification and volume manufacture.
  • Genuine electromagnetics: radiation mechanisms, impedance and matching, efficiency versus directivity, polarization, coupling, ground-plane and counterpoise effects, and the size-bandwidth-efficiency trade for electrically small antennas.
  • Fluency in a full-wave EM simulation tool such as HFSS, CST, FEKO or an equivalent platform.
  • Hands-on measurementexperience using VNA, spectrum analyzer, signal generator, and chamber work.
  • Experience designing into mechanically constrained products such handsets, wearables, IoT devices, vehicles, drones, robots, or mobile devices.
  • Comfort with multi-radio platforms and the isolation, coexistence and desense problems that come with them.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to multidisciplinary stakeholders.
  • Ability to operate with significant autonomy, prioritize effectively, and drive technically complex programs to completion.
Nice to have
  • Master's degree or PhD in electrical engineering, electromagnetics, applied physics, or a related field.
  • Sub-GHz or ISM band experience (902-928 MHz, 868 MHz), or other work where the antenna is a large fraction of a wavelength.
  • FCC Part 15 certification experience, particularly the intentional-radiator rules and the antenna-gain / conducted-power relationship.
  • Experience specifying, commissioning or operating an anechoic chamber or antenna range.
  • Outdoor and industrial hardware: radomes, environmental sealing, pole and mast mounting, temperature and ingress qualification.
  • Scripting for measurement automation and data analysis such as Python or MATLAB.
  • Field measurement experience: site surveys, installed-performance characterization, propagation measurement.
  • Working directly with antenna suppliers, contract manufacturers and certification labs.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Specter

  • Software Engineer - Fleet
    $135K — $160K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Enterprise Technology
    In-Person
  • Founding Deployment Strategist
    $120K — $150K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Enterprise Technology
    In-Person
  • Senior Accounting Manager
    $125K — $150K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Manufacturing & Automotive
    In-Person
  • Hardware Test Lead
    $120K — $145K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Telecommunications & Hardware
    In-Person
  • Hardware Test Engineer
    $110K — $130K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Telecommunications & Hardware
    In-Person

More Telecommunications & Hardware Jobs

Find similar Senior Antenna Engineer jobs: