Head of RF Engineering

Our client is a stealth-mode, well-funded defense technology company building next-generation systems to defend critical infrastructure against the fast-growing threat of drone attacks, the kind currently causing real damage to facilities across the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia, and increasingly a risk elsewhere. The company is backed by top-tier investors known for funding some of the most ambitious hard tech companies in the country.

This is a rare opportunity to work at the frontier of RF power, on a system operating at a scale most RF engineers never get the chance to touch, and to do it as the most senior RF hire on the team, with real ownership over the architecture from day one.

• •     Own and evolve the full RF chain for a novel, high-power system, from the driver stage through the amplifier and antenna
• •     Lead a trade study across candidate system architectures in your first month and drive the team to a decision
• •     Take that architecture from design through a working, in-house system within your first year
• •     Work hands-on in a lab environment with power electronics and RF test equipment
• •     Tackle novel EMI/EMC challenges that come with pushing RF power well beyond typical commercial or aerospace levels
• •     Partner closely with mechanical and thermal engineering, since a system at this power level lives or dies on how well those disciplines integrate with the RF design

• •     A true systems generalist across RF, someone who has designed and shipped complete RF chains end to end (driver, amplifier, antenna), not a specialist in only one subsystem
• •     5+ years of experience designing RF systems that have shipped and operated in production, not just simulated or prototyped in an academic setting
• •     A track record with high-power RF systems strongly preferred, ideally including space communications payloads (kilowatt-class, ground-to-space, space-to-space, or space-to-ground)
• •     Comfort owning a system through its full life cycle, from architecture decision through a working product, rather than handing off midway
• •     A first-principles thinker who is comfortable questioning assumptions and moving with urgency in a startup environment
• •     Genuine appetite for early-stage risk. This is a lean, fast-moving team building something technically ambitious, not a large, established program
• •     Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related discipline

• •     Technical scale: this is one of the highest RF power challenges in the industry today. Very few engineers get a system at this scale to work on, let alone own
• •     Backing: funded by investors behind some of the most well-known names in hard tech and aerospace
• •     Ownership: you are the senior RF hire, with a direct report and real authority over architecture decisions from day one
• •     Timing: an early seat at the table ahead of the company's next funding round