Principal RF Electrical Engineer

HawkEye 360 is seeking a Principal RF Electrical Engineer and Team Lead on the Space Team. The Space Team's mission is to design, build, and test small commercial satellites that provide revolutionary RF geospatial analytics.

You will lead electrical and RF design of our space platforms, with emphasis on digital, analog, and power electronics design as well as RF payloads including Software Defined Radios (SDRs), RF front ends, and antenna systems. You'll oversee PCB design from schematic capture through layout and manufacturing while also defining and executing performance tests to verify mission requirements. You will lead a small team of RF and Electrical Engineers, providing technical guidance and mentorship while remaining hands-on with design and test activities.

This role requires strong Electrical and RF Engineering expertise, excellent communication skills, and the ability to work cross-functionally with mechanical, software, payload, and systems engineering teams.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Design digital, analog, and power electronics for satellite flight hardware while overseeing team execution of schematic capture, PCB layout, RF chain design, and power subsystem development to ensure technical accuracy and on‑schedule delivery.
• Lead PCB design and layout activities with attention to RF design considerations including controlled impedance, grounding, shielding, power distribution, and signal integrity.
• Establish engineering best practices, design standards, and review processes to maintain high reliability and consistency across all hardware designs.
• Facilitate root‑cause analyses and corrective action efforts, aligning engineering teams around data‑driven problem solving for flight hardware anomalies.
• Manage task planning, delegation, and technical roadmapping to ensure the RF/EE team meets program milestones from concept through flight qualification.
• Work closely with PCB Contract Manufacturers (CMs) to ensure quality control and timely delivery of flight hardware.
• Design and develop RF payload architectures and Software Defined Radio systems for space-based RF collection missions.
• Develop test procedures and automation scripts to characterize SDR and RF front-end Performance.
• Support spacecraft integration and testing efforts, including the design of Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE), flatsats for functional testing, and satellite flight hardware testing.
• Perform first article hardware unit testing, including reception inspection, burn-in testing, thermal validation, and hardware checkouts.

Your skills and qualifications:

Essential education and experience:

• Bachelor's degree in RF/Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and testing RF electronics, including SDRs, mixers, filters, amplifiers, and receiver chains.
• Expertise in PCB design and layout (Altium or similar) including schematic capture, component selection, and layout for mixed-signal and RF applications.
• Strong Understanding of power electronics, high-speed digital design, and analog circuit design.
• Strong understanding of RF fundamentals (impedance matching, S-parameters, noise figure, linearity, etc.) and software-defined radio architectures.
• Experience using lab equipment such as Spectrum Analyzers, Network Analyzers, Signal Generators, Noise Figure Analyzers, and RF test chambers.
• Hands-on flight hardware experience (satellite integration, RF lab testing, prototyping, troubleshooting).
• Experience handling ESD-sensitive components and operating in cleanroom environments.
• Strong communication skills to explain complex technical concepts to cross-functional stakeholders.
• 1+ years of technical leadership, project leadership, or team lead experience.

Desirable:

• Experience working in the smallsat or space industry with RF payloads or communication systems.
• Experience designing for radiation environments (TID and Proton)
• Experience with version control (git) and modern engineering workflows.
• Proficiency with Python, MATLAB, C++, or other coding languages for RF analysis and test automation.
• Experience with RF simulation tools (ADS, CST, Genesys, HFSS, Scikit-RF, Emerge, or similar) and RF modeling.
• Familiarity with CAD (NX, SolidWorks, etc.) to support electro-mechanical integration.