Lead RF Front-End Architect for Satellite IoT Terminals

Frontdoor Defense; Arlington (TX); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

E-Space in Arlington, TX is seeking a Senior RF Front-End Design Engineer to lead end-to-end RF development for satellite user terminals. This hands-on role requires translating system requirements into robust RF hardware, from architecture to production release, collaborating with antenna, modem, baseband, firmware, and thermal teams.

The successful candidate will design transmit/receive chains, perform RF analyses, and guide testing and production validation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or a related field.
• 7+ years of hands-on RF or microwave hardware design experience.
• Experience designing RF front-end hardware from requirements through production release.
• Strong understanding of RF architectures and impedance matching.

Responsibilities

• Own RF front-end designs from system requirements through production release.
• Develop transmit and receive chains with amplifiers, filters, switches, and transceivers.
• Translate link-budget requirements into RF specifications for output power, noise figure, and gain.
• Perform cascaded RF analyses for gain, noise figure, sensitivity, and dynamic range.
• Design device-level RF circuits, impedance matching, bias, and protection networks.
• Simulate RF circuits using ADS, AWR, or equivalent tools.
• Define RF PCB stackups, transmission lines, grounding, shielding, and routing.
• Develop architectures supporting TDD, FDD, or simultaneous transmit/receive.
• Analyze transmitter leakage, receiver desensitization, and spurious emissions.
• Integrate RF front end with antenna, modem, baseband, firmware, power, and thermal systems.
• Plan RF measurements using VNAs, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, and power meters.
• Measure and optimize gain, noise figure, output power, EVM, and spurious emissions.
• Correlate simulations with measurements and drive corrective actions.
• Support environmental testing and manufacturing verification strategies.
• Document requirements, analyses, schematics, and test results.

Skills

RF front-end design

Schematic capture

PCB layout

RF circuit simulation

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering

Tools

Keysight ADS

Cadence AWR

VNAs

Spectrum analyzers

Job description

E-Space in Arlington, TX is seeking a Senior RF Front-End Design Engineer to lead end-to-end RF development for satellite user terminals. This hands-on role requires translating system requirements into robust RF hardware, from architecture to production release, collaborating with antenna, modem, baseband, firmware, and thermal teams.

The successful candidate will design transmit/receive chains, perform RF analyses, and guide testing and production validation.