Senior RF Engineer

Overview

• Define the seeker architecture and lead make-vs-buy decisions for radar sensors, front-end components, and processing hardware.
• Own Tx/Rx chain analysis, including link budgets, noise figure, and phase noise, and integrate antennas with the airframe and radome.
• Specify the high-speed data interfaces between the seeker and the avionics, such as high-speed ADCs/DACs and PCIe.
• Select and manage suppliers for RF components and subsystems.

• Build low-latency processing pipelines that detect and track high-speed targets, including Doppler processing, range-Doppler mapping, and CFAR detection.
• Develop clutter and ECM rejection.
• Implement and optimize the pipeline on the flight processor [FPGA / GPU / embedded CPU].

• Own the seeker-to-guidance interface. Work with the GNC team to fuse radar tracks with IMU, GPS, and onboard state estimates (EKF/UKF) for closed-loop terminal guidance.

• Design RF test rigs and run hardware-in-the-loop tests using anechoic chambers, radar scene generators, RCS reference targets, and flight dynamics models.
• Lead seeker testing from the lab bench through environmental qualification and flight test.

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field. M.S. preferred.
• 6+ years designing, integrating, or testing radar systems, including ownership of a significant subsystem through hardware test.
• Deep understanding of radar physics and electromagnetics, including noise figure, phase noise, and link budget analysis.
• Strong DSP background, with experience implementing real-time radar detection and tracking.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python, and experience with real-time or embedded systems.
• Hands-on lab experience testing radar architectures (FMCW, pulsed Doppler, or AESA) with spectrum analyzers, VNAs, and oscilloscopes.
• Experience sourcing RF components and making make-vs-buy decisions.
• Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual). [Must be eligible to obtain a U.S. security clearance.]

• Experience with missile seekers, air-to-air systems, counter-ballistic tracking, or EW resilience.
• FPGA signal processing (VHDL/Verilog) or GPU acceleration for radar pipelines.
• Antenna array design, beamforming, radome EM integration, or atmospheric attenuation modeling.
• RCS modeling and synthetic target generation.
• Experience with environmental testing for high-G, vibration, and thermal conditions (e.g., MIL-STD-810).
• Prior early-stage startup experience.