Senior RF Design Engineer (Millimeter Wave)
Impulse Space
Design
Posted on Jan 29, 2025
As a Senior RF Design Engineer, you will own the design, testing, and delivery of flight RF hardware systems for space missions anywhere from low Earth orbit to mars. You will also conduct vehicle-level testing, RF integration, and desense evaluations.
- Department
- Avionics
- Employment Type
- Full Time
- Location
- Redondo Beach
- Workplace type
- Onsite
- Compensation
- $130,000 - $185,000 / year
- Reporting To
- Jake Messner, RF Manager
Responsibilities
- Design and bring up RF transmit and receive systems supporting operation from S-Band to Ka-Band
- Develop RF hardware components including amplifiers, mixers, splitters, filters, shielded enclosures, and antenna hats.
- Evaluate and design for mitigation of desense, EMI, EMC, and co-existence issues.
- Work with a cross-disciplinary team to define and implement RF hardware requirements on a mission-by-mission basis, design RF PCBs, bring up and troubleshoot RF systems, and integrate systems to spacecraft
- Derive RF hardware design requirements from system-level specifications
- Improve existing RF products throughout their lifecycle by troubleshooting issues, performing failure analysis of parts and systems, and implementing improvements
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical field
- 3+ years experience designing RF components or PCBs above 18GHz
- 5+ years experience designing or testing RF components or systems
- Strong RF PCB design and debugging skills
- Demonstrated ability to design and integrate RF components including LNAs, filters, PAs, mixers, etc.
- Demonstrated ability to work in the lab with RF equipment including spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, signal generators, and software defined radios
- Strong understanding of the blocks of RF front ends
- Familiarity with blocks of signal modulation/demodulation and modulation schemes such as BPSK, APSK, GMSK, FSK, etc
- Experience with link budget and lineup calculations
- Experience characterizing system desense and coexistence
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Demonstrated experience working on RF front end design for electronically steerable antennas (ESAs)
- Familiarity with an electromagnetic simulation software such as HFSS, CST, ADS, or Genesys
- Demonstrated design and test experience on launch vehicles, satellites, or other spacecraft
- Demonstrated ability to design and conduct testing for EMC and EMI compliance
- Experience with common RF protocols like SRS4, DVBS-II, and CCSDS
- Experience in a startup or agile development environment
Additional Information:
Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of stock options, and access to medical, vision & dental coverage as well as access to a 401(k) retirement plan.
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
Impulse Space is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Impulse Space is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
About Impulse Space
Impulse Space, the in-space transportation company founded by Tom Mueller, is opening access beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with its fleet of in-space transportation vehicles. The high-energy Helios vehicle unlocks orbits beyond LEO with its powerful Deneb engine, dropping off payloads in MEO, GEO, heliocentric, lunar, and other planetary orbits. The flight-proven Mira vehicle uses a nontoxic, high-impulse chemical propulsion system to offer orbital transport, constellation deployment, and precision reentry services to customers throughout LEO. Led by a team that delivered the most reliable rockets in history, Impulse provides economical and efficient in-space transportation by reliably and rapidly getting customers where they want to go.
Our Hiring Process
Stage 1:
Application Received
Stage 2:
Resume Review
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