Principal 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 Principal 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 position requires an engineer who can move comfortably between detailed technical analysis and senior-level sponsor engagement. The successful candidate will personally evaluate engineering assumptions, models, code, data, protection criteria, and conclusions while providing technical direction to multidisciplinary teams and translating complex engineering results into actionable recommendations.

• Spectrum Band Studies & Compatibility Analysis:
  Lead complex spectrum band studies and electromagnetic compatibility analyses, with an initial focus on the 2.7-2.9 GHz band. Develop and evaluate interference scenarios involving radar and other spectrum-dependent systems, including propagation, antenna characteristics, receiver performance, aggregate interference, deployment assumptions, operational scenarios, and applicable protection criteria.

• Hands-on Spectrum Engineering:
  Personally develop, execute, and review RF propagation, link-budget, interference, coexistence, and statistical analyses using MATLAB, Python, and specialized spectrum-engineering tools. Evaluate model validity, input-data pedigree, sensitivity, uncertainty, and limitations to ensure technically defensible and reproducible conclusions.

• Spectrum-Dependent System Acquisition:
  Provide spectrum engineering expertise throughout the acquisition and modernization lifecycle of spectrum-dependent systems. Support requirements development, architecture and design reviews, technical…