Senior RF Engineer

Chaos Industries; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401k match

Free daily lunch

Unlimited PTO

Relocation assistance

Job summary

CHAOS Industries seeks a Senior RF Engineer to design, analyze, integrate, and verify high-reliability RF and microwave electronics for aerospace and defense applications. This role spans the full product lifecycle within a cross-functional, Agile team in Hawthorne, CA, and involves translating system requirements into robust RF implementations.

This hands-on position emphasizes RF circuit design, prototyping, testing, and field validation, collaborating with systems, power, digital, mechanical,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering with 7+ years of RF engineering experience or a Masters with 5+ years or a PhD with 2+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience developing RF hardware for aerospace, defense, avionics, radar, EW, communications, or space systems.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Design, analyze, prototype, and tune RF circuit boards incorporating catalog MMICs, including LNAs, power amplifiers, baluns, filters, mixers, and associated bias and matching networks.
• Perform architecture development and component trade studies to meet system-level RF performance requirements.
• Plan and execute RF testing and characterization, including integration and troubleshooting at the board, module, and subsystem levels.
• Collaborate with engineers to ensure RF designs integrate within larger systems.
• Support RF test equipment, fixtures, and automation development.

Skills

RF engineering

Aerospace/defense

RF test equipment

System integration

Design validation

Security clearance

Education

Electrical Engineering degree

Tools

HFSS

ADS

AWR

VNAs

Spectrum analyzers

Job description

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com .

Role Overview:

CHAOS is seeking a Senior RF Engineer to support the design, analysis, integration, and verification of high-reliability RF and microwave electronics for aerospace and defense applications. This role works as part of a cross-functional, agile development team and spans the full product lifecycle, from early architecture and component trade studies through detailed design, testing, production support, and post-production sustainment of mission-critical systems.

This is a hands-on hardware role focused on translating system requirements into robust RF implementations, integrating and troubleshooting prototype hardware, and validating performance through lab and field experimentation.

This is a full-time, on-site position in Hawthorne, CA.

Responsibilities:

• Design, analyze, prototype, and tune RF circuit boards incorporating catalog MMICs, including LNAs, power amplifiers, baluns, filters, mixers, and associated bias and matching networks
• Perform architecture development and component trade studies to meet system-level RF performance requirements
• Plan and execute RF testing and characterization, including integration and troubleshooting at the board, module, and subsystem levels
• Contribute to the design and specification of RF test equipment, fixtures, and automation
• Collaborate with systems, power, digital, mechanical, and software engineers to ensure RF designs integrate cleanly within larger systems
• Serve as a technical contributor from development through production and post-production, including failure analysis and field support
• Support linear, nonlinear, and electromagnetic simulations using industry-standard tools (e.g., HFSS, ADS, AWR, or equivalent)
• Support design, analyze, prototype, and tune RF circuit boards incorporating catalog MMICs, including LNAs, power amplifiers, baluns, filters, mixers, and associated bias and matching networks
• Support PCB layout (Altium) and RF stack-up definition, including impedance control, grounding, shielding, and isolation techniques
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering with 7+ years of progressively responsible RF engineering experience, or a Masters with 5+ years, or a PhD with 2+ years of relevant experience
• Experience developing RF hardware for aerospace, defense, avionics, radar, EW, communications, or space systems
• Strong understanding of RF fundamentals and how they add to system-level performance, including gain, noise figure, linearity, phase noise, stability, and impedance matching
• Hands‑on experience with RF test equipment (e.g., VNAs, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters)
• Demonstrated ability to analyze, troubleshoot, and resolve complex RF circuit performance issues
• Strong attention to detail and ability to operate effectively in fast‑paced, development‑focused environments
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience with radar, EW, remote sensing, or communications subsystem architecture and performance analysis.
• Experience planning and executing lab and field experiments, including test planning, data collection, and measurement correlation.
• Experience with RF front-end prototyping and integration, including LNAs, PAs, filters, mixers, frequency conversion chains, and antenna interfaces.
• Familiarity with antenna/system integration, EMI/EMC, environmental constraints, and applicable aerospace/defense standards.
• Experience correlating simulation, analysis, and measured data to refine designs and retire technical risk.
• Experience supporting design reviews, customer interactions, verification planning, and transition from development into production.
• Active U.S. security clearance.
• Experience with power amplifier design, analysis, and integration
• Familiarity with EMI/EMC considerations for RF systems and compliance with applicable aerospace standards
• Experience with mixed‑signal or RF/digital interfaces
• Knowledge of manufacturing considerations for RF hardware, including tolerance analysis and yield drivers
• Experience supporting production hardware and fielded systems
• Experience with RF PCB layout best practices and design‑for‑manufacturing considerations
• Familiarity with DO-160, MIL-STD-461, or similar aerospace/defense standards

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Team Growth: 350 employees and counting across 5 global offices

Salary Range: $160,000 - $220,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

Please note this position does not necessarily require eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in CHAOS Industries’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.