Sandia National Laboratories

Senior/Principal Microwave & Sensor Engineer - Advanced RF Systems, Onsite

Sandia National Laboratories$117K — $235K *
Aerospace & Defense
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field with 5 years of relevant experience or equivalent education and experience
  • Ability to acquire and maintain DOE Q clearance and SCI clearance, potentially requiring polygraph
  • Graduate degree in Electrical Engineering or related field is preferred
  • Laboratory skills in RF and digital test equipment
  • Strong communication skills required for multidisciplinary collaboration

Responsibilities

  • Develop and incorporate innovative RF technologies for communication and electronic warfare systems
  • Negotiate technical and programmatic requirements with customers
  • Analyze, design, and develop RF/EW systems and subsystems
  • Execute test and qualification plans for hardware
  • Deliver projects within defined schedules and budgets
  • Troubleshoot technical issues and resolve anomalies
  • Mentor junior engineers and interact with customers and stakeholders

Benefits

  • Relocation assistance for qualified candidates
  • On-site work environment with occasional travel required
  • Opportunities to work alongside a multidisciplinary team
  • Engagement in projects affecting national security
  • Participation in advanced technology development initiatives
Full Job Description
What Your Job Will Be Like

The Advanced RF Systems department (5365) is seeking a highly motivated RF/Microwave Engineer to join its team. This position focuses on providing specialized RF engineering expertise to aid in the development and fielding of communication and Electronic Warfare systems. You will be joining a multi-disciplinary team focused on delivering solutions to national security challenges. The ideal candidate will possess strong teamwork skills and a background in electronics engineering (RF, analog, digital) within size, weight, and power (SWaP) of constrained systems.

On any given day, you may be called on to:

Develop and incorporate innovative technologies including efforts to:
  • Negotiate technical and programmatic requirements with customers
  • Analyze, design, and develop communication and electronic warfare (EW) systems, subsystems, and modules
  • Develop and execute test and qualification plans
  • Deliver hardware within schedule and budgetary constraints
  • Troubleshoot problems and support anomaly resolution activities
  • Develop or mature RF technologies to enable new mission capabilities
  • Lead or support formal program reviews
  • Support customer funded advanced development needs
  • Provide engineering and programmatic documentation
  • Apply knowledge and experience to evaluate and improve work quality, performance, and alignment of results with customer expectations.

Build and maintain relationships with customers, partners and influencers including efforts to:
  • Interact with customers and stakeholders
  • Represent Sandia within the technical community
  • Engage with commercial or industry partners
  • Mentor junior staff
  • Occasionally travel to engage partners
  • Work with technical teams to ensure expectations and requirements are met

Due to the nature of work, successful candidate must be able to work onsite. The position will require occasional travel. Relocation provided for those that qualify.

Salary Range

$117,500 - $235,700

*Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

  • A Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline and five (5) years of directly relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.
  • Ability to acquire and maintain a DOE Q clearance and SCI clearance, which may require a polygraph.


Qualifications We Desire

The ideal R&D S&E, Microwave & Sensor Engineer candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:
  • Graduate degree in Electrical Engineering or a directly related field where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation)
  • Laboratory skills and knowledge of RF and digital test equipment
  • Knowledge of RF, Digital Communications, Electronic Warfare, and Cyber Security systems and principles
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills, ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams

Also, for this posting we are seeking individuals with the following experience:
  • RF and Microwave Design and Analysis: Proficiency in designing, analyzing, and optimizing RF circuits and systems
  • Experience in designing and synthesizing RF and microwave circuits
  • Experience with RF/microwave design tools (HFSS, CST, ADS, Genesys, etc.)
  • Experience in printed circuit board design/layout including high frequency design
  • Experience in a hardware electronics laboratory environment and measurement techniques including:
    • Use of general test and measurement equipment (oscilloscopes, DMM, logic analyzers)
    • RF test equipment (network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters)
    • Probe testing/troubleshooting of RF/microwave, analog, and digital circuits
  • Experience in mixed-signal digital and analog circuit design
  • Project leadership experience with a demonstrated ability to deliver results
  • Excellent communication (written and verbal) and teamwork skills
  • Ability to effectively communicate and collaborate with external and internal partners
  • Experience or familiarity with the Intelligence Community and Department of War organizations and mission spaces
  • Active DOE Q or DOW Top Secret security clearance and the ability to acquire and maintain an SCI clearance


About Our Team

As part of the Intelligent RF Communications group, we play a pivotal role in advancing the Nation's technological superiority. Our team is dedicated to delivering capabilities that ensure RF and spectral dominance, highly reliable communications, and groundbreaking advancements that fortify our future strength. We thrive in a dynamic environment where cross-department collaboration is key, enabling us to provide integrated engineering solutions that span from core research to prototype development and high-end, fielded products.

In the Advanced RF Systems department (5365), we tackle pressing national security challenges by developing innovative solutions in wireless communication and electronic warfare. Our customers include a variety of government organizations including the U.S Armed Forces, the Intelligence Community, and those conducting special operations missions. Our staff members have a diverse skills set including microwave circuit design, antenna design, signal analysis, digital signal processing, and embedded software.

We partner across the laboratory and the group to bring on other critical skill sets to our multi-disciplinary team to include computer scientists, systems engineers, and cyber engineers. Our design challenges include system development (designing scalable systems, systems integration into host platforms, etc), understanding complex adversary systems and associated vulnerabilities, and signal analysis and generation of RF low probably of detect waveforms.

Posting Duration

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of three (3) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.

About Sandia National Laboratories

The Sandia National Laboratories is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories in the United States, managed and operated privately by the National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia. Their primary mission is to develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons and high technology. Headquartered on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it also has a campus in Livermore, California, next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. It is Sandia's mission to maintain the reliability and surety of nuclear weapon systems, conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and investigate methods for the disposal of the United States' nuclear weapons program's hazardous waste. Other missions include research and development in energy and environmental programs, as well as the surety of critical national infrastructures. In addition, Sandia is home to a wide variety of research including computational biology, mathematics, materials science, alternative energy, psychology, MEMS, and cognitive science initiatives. Sandia formerly hosted ASCI Red, one of the world's fastest supercomputers until its decommission in 2006, and now hosts ASCI Red Storm, originally known as Thor's Hammer. Sandia is also home to the Z Machine. The Z Machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons. In December 2016, it was announced that National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, under the direction of Honeywell International, would take over the management of Sandia National Laboratories starting on May 1, 2017. Educational opportunities are conducted in collaboration with university students through several programs, including the Securing Top Academic Research & Talent at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program and the Sandia University Partnerships Network.
Learn more about Sandia National Laboratories
Industry
Founded
1948

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Sandia National Laboratories

More Aerospace & Defense Jobs

Find similar Senior/Principal Microwave & Sensor Engineer - Advanced RF Systems, Onsite jobs: