Senior RF Validation Engineer

About Tacit

We are an early‑stage, deep tech startup based in San Francisco, developing innovative hardware that rethinks human‑computer interaction. We are backed by General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, and Greylock Partners, with a founding team from Stanford, Brain Gate, Oculus, and Tesla. While we can’t reveal too much just yet, our team is tackling cutting‑edge engineering challenges to bring revolutionary products to life.

We are looking for a RF Systems Validation Engineer to own scalable RF validation and production test infrastructure from prototype bring‑up through manufacturing ramp. The primary focus is RF characterization, system debug, automation, and bench‑to‑factory correlation.

This is a hands‑on role for someone who enjoys turning ambiguous hardware behavior into clear measurements, practical debug plans, and decision‑ready recommendations. Strong candidates may come from either RF systems validation or manufacturing test backgrounds, with growth into the other areas. We do not expect expertise in every listed area.

• RF Validation, Characterization, and Debug

  • Develop and execute RF validation plans and characterization procedures for radar and connectivity prototypes, engineering builds, and production‑intent hardware.
  • Characterize RF performance across frequency, power, temperature, configuration, and operating modes.
  • Perform systematic RF debug and root‑cause analysis for impairments including conduct coexistence (CoEx), leakage, blockers, desense, nonlinearities, compression, spurs, harmonics, reciprocal mixing, noise coupling, and related RF/system‑level behaviors.
  • Build RF budgets, compliance matrices, and concise summaries that connect measured behavior to product‑level requirements.

• Manufacturing Test & Production Support

  • Develop, validate, and optimize RF test flows for manufacturing, including calibration, limits, guard‑bands, and pass/fail criteria.
  • Support EVT, DVT, PVT, pilot builds, and manufacturing ramp with data‑driven yield analysis and issue resolution.
  • Partner with contract manufacturers and operations teams to improve test coverage, cycle time, repeatability, and troubleshooting efficiency.
  • Create factory‑facing test documentation, debug guides, and high‑level summaries for recurring issues.

• Lab Automation, Instrumentation & Data Analysis

  • Automate RF measurements across lab and production test setups using calibrated RF instrumentation and test systems, including VNAs, spectrum analyzers, real‑time spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters, oscilloscopes, probers, power supplies, phase‑noise or noise‑figure measurement equipment, switch matrices, call boxes, wireless connectivity testers, and similar tools as needed.
  • Build test matrices, collect structured datasets, and analyze trends across units, builds, conditions, and configurations.
  • Use statistical methods to set limits, identify outliers, separate measurement artifacts from real failures, and drive yield improvement.
  • Correlate bench measurements with automated test results and production data to close the loop between engineering and manufacturing.

• Cross‑Functional Product Development

  • Work closely with RF design, electrical engineering, firmware, validation, NPI, operations, and manufacturing partners.
  • Provide practical feedback on DFM, DFT, test access, calibration hooks, fixture strategy, and debug visibility.
  • Communicate complex RF findings in clear, actionable summaries for both technical and non‑specialist audiences.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, RF Engineering, Physics, or related technical field.
• 5+ years of experience in RF, electrical, validation, product test, or manufacturing test engineering; senior‑level candidates typically bring deeper ownership across product ramps.
• Strong RF fundamentals, including noise floor, thermal noise, integrated noise, sensitivity, link budget, dynamic range, IIP2/IIP3, OIP2/OIP3, P1dB, compression, nonlinearities, blockers, leakage, and desense.
• Hands‑on experience with RF lab equipment such as VNAs, spectrum analyzers or RTSAs, signal generators, oscilloscopes, power meters, probers, programmable power…