Position Summary, Responsibilities, & QualificationsThe Radiofrequency (RF) Electronics Engineer is responsible for designing, building, testing, and managing state-of-the-art satellite RF payload electronics for secure and jam-resistant communications. You will be the designer and owner of hardware that will fly in space and will perform trade studies, select and manage vendors, design RF hardware, test, and guide your system through production readiness. At the end of three years, you will have flown cutting-edge hardware in space that will be critical for providing best-in-the-world resilient and secure communications for enterprise and government customers.
You should be prepared to work and thrive in a fast moving environment where you are comfortable taking vague design ideas and turning them into tangible hardware ready for test and flight. We are seeking engineers who love to solve hard problems.
Responsibilities- Responsible for overall electrical design, analysis, validation, and ownership of a satellite payload RF chain, including, but not limited to: limiters, filters, switches, low noise amplifiers (LNAs), power amplifiers (PAs), up/downconverters, mixers, local oscillators (LOs), phase-locked loops (PLLs), splitters/combiners, transmission lines, and baluns
- Own product delivery timeline through entire lifecycle (requirements definition, design, prototype build & test, production build & test, system integration, and successful on-orbit operations)
- Assess power/signal integrities and EMI/EMC issues
- Develop and execute RF test plans for component and system-level validation
- Collaborate with team members to establish and manage qualification and acceptance test campaigns for your hardware for space environments (vibration, thermal, TVAC, radiation) per standards such as MIL-STD-461 and SMC-S-016
- Collaborate with team members to manage and perform integration & test of your hardware on the spacecraft
Basic QualificationsEducation
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field with a focus on RF and/or millimeter wave hardware
Experience
- A minimum of 4 years of experience in RF or millimeter wave hardware design, analysis, and testing
- Experience designing and characterizing active and passive RF analog electronic components such as: limiters, filters, switches, low noise amplifiers (LNAs), power amplifiers (PAs), up/downconverters, mixers, local oscillators (LOs), phase-locked loops (PLLs), splitters/combiners, transmission lines, and baluns
- Experience with RF circuit simulation tools (e.g. Keysight ADS, Cadence AWR Microwave Office)
- Experience with multilayer PCB design, layout, and manufacturing using software tools such as Altium or similar
- Experience with RF test & measurement tools such as vector network analyzers (VNAs), spectrum analyzers, signal generators, and software defined radios (SDRs)
- Detailed knowledge of EMI/EMC/ESD mitigation techniques specific to RF hardware
- Self-motivated with strong organizational, written, and oral communication skills.
Preferred QualificationsEducation
- Master's degree in Electrical Engineering with a focus on RF and/or millimeter wave electronics
Experience
- A minimum of 6 years of professional experience working on RF or millimeter wave hardware design, analysis, and testing
- Experience working with electrical hardware and/or avionics for space through the entire product life cycle
- Experience designing and testing hardware for space environments or similar per standards such as SMC-S-016 or MIL-STD-461, including considerations for thermal management, vibration, radiation effects, and reliability
- Familiar with power electronics for biasing RF circuits
- Familiar with the entire RF communications system from baseband to RF antenna, including: link budgets, digital signal processing (DSP), field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), high-speed digital, clock trees, SPI, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and digital-to-analog converters (DACs)
- Experience with electromagnetic, passive RF, and antenna simulation tools (e.g., Ansys Electronics Desktop HFSS)
- Experience with designing and testing RF hardware above 17 GHz
- Familiar with waveguides and traveling wave tube amps (TWTAs)
- Familiar with test automation, data processing and visualization using Python or MATLAB
- Familiar with both mechanically steered (parabolic reflector) and electronically steered (phased array) antenna systems
