Rf Engineer

Job Title:

RF Design Engineer

Job Description
This hands-on RF Design Engineer role focuses on developing advanced RF products for aerospace, defense, and flight-test telemetry applications. You will own the full RF product development lifecycle, from interpreting initial requirements and defining product specifications through architecture, circuit design, simulation, testing, troubleshooting, qualification, and production release. The position is intended for an experienced individual contributor at a Lead level, with flexibility to consider strong Senior or Principal-level engineers who can work independently while collaborating closely with firmware, FPGA, PCB, mechanical, manufacturing, and test teams.

Candidates with transmitter or receiver design experience in aerospace and defense, wireless communications, cellular, base-station, or similar RF product environments are encouraged to apply.

• Design RF and analog circuits for transmitter and receiver products, ensuring robust performance and reliability.
• Develop RF products from initial requirements through final product acceptance and production release, owning the complete development lifecycle.
• Create detailed product specifications, RF architectures, block diagrams, schematics, and test strategies that align with customer and system requirements.
• Design and analyze transmitter and receiver signal chains, optimizing for performance, linearity, noise, and efficiency.
• Simulate RF circuit performance using Cadence AWR Microwave Office and integrate simulation into all stages of the design process.
• Compare simulated RF design performance with measured hardware performance and refine designs to close gaps between prediction and reality.
• Use PSpice or comparable tools to perform analog circuit and DC power-supply analysis and verification.
• Design and optimize RF circuits such as amplifiers, including both small-signal and large-signal RF parameter considerations.
• Generate the RF portions of PCB/PWB layouts within Microwave Office and ensure layout quality for high-frequency performance.
• Guide PCB/PWB layout personnel through completion of the overall board layout, providing clear direction on RF layout best practices.
• Develop comprehensive test methods, test procedures, and product-acceptance criteria to validate RF designs and ensure consistent production quality.
• Use RF laboratory equipment to validate, troubleshoot, debug, and optimize designs, working independently in a lab environment.
• Support formal product-development reviews, including System Requirements Review (SRR), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and Critical Design Review (CDR).
• Participate in de-rating, reliability assessments, root-cause investigations, and corrective-action activities to improve product robustness.
• Coordinate effectively with cross-functional engineering and production teams to ensure smooth transition from design to manufacturing and test.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to other engineers, offering guidance and expertise without direct people-management responsibilities.

• Proven hands-on RF circuit design experience, with direct ownership of RF circuits or RF products rather than solely test, systems, or integration work.
• Strong transmitter and/or receiver design experience, with emphasis on RF architecture and circuit design rather than specific frequency bands.
• Direct experience using Cadence AWR Microwave Office as a primary RF design and simulation platform, or highly transferable RF simulation expertise.
• Demonstrated ability to use simulation-driven engineering, integrating RF simulation throughout the design process and correlating predicted performance with measured results.
• Solid RF laboratory experience, including independent use of RF test equipment to troubleshoot and debug hardware.
• Experience owning the product-development lifecycle from requirements definition through production release, not limited to a single development stage.
• Ability to work primarily onsite due to the hands-on design, laboratory, and collaborative nature of the role.

• Experience designing RF transmitter or receiver products in aerospace, defense, wireless communications, cellular, base-station, or similar RF environments.
• Familiarity with PSpice or comparable tools for analog circuit and DC power-supply analysis.
• Experience participating in formal engineering reviews such as SRR, PDR, and CDR.
• Background in reliability, de-rating analysis,…