Senior RF Systems Engineer (Portal)

Role:
As an Senior RF & Antenna Systems Engineer you will define and evaluate phased-array RF architectures for Northwood’s satellite ground-station network. You will translate mission and link requirements into antenna, aperture, beamforming, RF front-end, calibration, and tracking requirements, and evaluate how those choices affect end-to-end communications performance.

This role sits at the intersection of phased arrays, RF systems, SATCOM links, and physical-layer communications. You will work closely with antenna, RF, DSP/communications, digital, mechanical, manufacturing, software, and operations teams to ensure that the complete ground-station system achieves its required link performance.

The ideal candidate has deep experience in phased-array or antenna systems and can reason beyond the aperture—connecting gain, scan loss, polarization, sidelobes, noise, linearity, phase noise, calibration, and propagation to EVM, acquisition, BER, throughput, and link availability.

Responsibilities:

• Define phased-array antenna and RF-system architectures for satellite communication ground stations.

• Translate mission, coverage, link-availability, waveform, throughput, and regulatory requirements into aperture, RF front-end, beamforming, calibration, pointing, and tracking specifications.

• Develop and maintain end-to-end SATCOM link budgets incorporating measured aperture and RF-chain performance.

• Analyze analog, hybrid, and digital beamforming approaches in collaboration with RF and digital implementation teams.

• Determine how antenna and RF impairments affect communications performance, including EVM, carrier acquisition, BER/BLER, throughput, spectral compliance, and link availability.

• Analyze RF lineups and performance budgets for gain, noise figure, dynamic range, linearity, compression, intermodulation, phase noise, frequency stability, filtering, and isolation.

• Build Python, MATLAB, or similar models combining array behavior, measured RF performance, propagation, and modem-level metrics.

• Lead cross-functional investigations of degraded G/T, EIRP, link margin, EVM, acquisition, tracking, BER, throughput, or spectral performance.

• Support regulatory submissions, spectrum coordination, partner interface reviews, system acceptance, and operational deployment.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Electrical Engineering, Communications Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related discipline.

• 5+ years of experience with phased arrays, antenna systems, RF communication systems, or SATCOM terminals.

• Experience with communication-link analysis, including EIRP, G/T, C/N0​, Eb​/N0​, link margin, atmospheric loss, and interference.

• Understanding of digital communications sufficient to relate RF performance to modulation-dependent EVM, acquisition, BER, throughput, and spectral performance.

• Experience defining or evaluating RF lineups, including noise figure, gain, linearity, dynamic range, phase noise, filtering, and isolation.

• Hands-on experience with RF measurements and integrated system debugging using equipment such as vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, noise sources, and vector signal analyzers.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Familiarity with SATCOM waveforms and standards such as DVB-S2/S2X, CCSDS, or equivalent modem architectures.

• Experience analyzing modulation-dependent EVM, BER/BLER, adjacent-channel leakage, spectral regrowth, amplifier backoff, and link degradation.

• Experience with SDR-integrated RF systems or collaboration with FPGA, DSP, modem, and embedded-software teams.

• Experience with HFSS, CST, or comparable full-wave electromagnetic tools.

• Familiarity with radar, sensing, 5G NR, 802.11ad/ay, MIMO, multi-beam systems, or electronic-warfare systems where the experience transfers to array and RF-system architecture.

Additional Requirements:

• Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed

Compensation:

RF/Antenna Engineer/Level 3: $140,000 - $175,000 per year

RF/Antenna Engineer/Level 4: $152,000 - $190,000 per year

RF/Antenna Engineer/Level 5: $180,800 - $226,000 per year