Lead Spectrum Engineer

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity.

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MITRE operates six Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), including the Center for Enterprise Modernization (CEM), sponsored by our public sector partners including the Department of Commerce. In the CEM FFRDC, we help our sponsors advance critical national missions through objective technical analysis, systems engineering, spectrum engineering, advanced sensing, technology modernization, and acquisition support.

MITRE is seeking a technically strong Lead Spectrum Engineer to provide technical leadership and hands‑on engineering support for critical weather and environmental sensing missions. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in spectrum engineering, RF systems, radar, antennas, propagation, interference and compatibility analysis, and spectrum‑dependent systems, combined with the systems engineering judgment needed to support complex operational systems and acquisitions.

A major near‑term focus of this position will be technical leadership for spectrum compatibility and band studies involving the 2.7‑2.9 GHz band, including analysis of incumbent radar systems, interference protection between incumbent and commercial systems, and potential new spectrum uses. The engineer will also support the acquisition and modernization of spectrum‑dependent systems and provide broader RF, spectrum, and systems engineering expertise to operational weather systems.

This is a hands‑on engineering position requiring an individual who can independently perform complex technical analyses, lead defined technical work streams, critically evaluate engineering assumptions and results, and effectively communicate findings to government stakeholders. The successful candidate will work closely with senior technical leaders while taking ownership of significant portions of complex spectrum and RF engineering efforts.

• Spectrum Band Studies & Compatibility Analysis:
  Perform and lead technical elements of spectrum band studies and electromagnetic compatibility analyses, with an initial focus on the 2.7‑2.9 GHz band. Develop interference scenarios involving radar and other spectrum‑dependent systems and analyze propagation, antenna characteristics, receiver performance, aggregate interference, deployment assumptions, operational scenarios, and applicable protection criteria.
• Hands‑on Spectrum Engineering:
  Develop and execute RF propagation, link‑budget, interference, coexistence, and statistical analyses using MATLAB, Python, and specialized spectrum‑engineering tools. Evaluate input data, model assumptions, sensitivity, uncertainty, and technical limitations, and independently verify analytical results.
• Spectrum‑Dependent System Acquisition:
  Provide spectrum engineering support throughout the acquisition and modernization lifecycle of spectrum‑dependent systems. Contribute to requirements development, architecture and design…