RF/MICROWAVE Design Engineer

Description: Designs, develops, tests radio frequency (RF) and/or microwave systems architecture, components, circuits, or products. Includes antenna design, both reflector and array systems, frequency synthesizers, transmitters and receivers. Participates in electrical design tasks including requirements analysis, specification generation, interface definition, component selection, circuit simulation, schematic capture, and board layout. Participates in simulation, testing and troubleshooting of RF circuits and subsystems. Develops test plans and procedures for RF subsystems. Sub-system circuit design. Participates in required design reviews. Designs or develops radio frequency equipment and products which are used for the testing process of radio frequencies. Produces radio frequency devices and components ensuring that the design specifications are completely followed. Troubleshoots any problems found in radio frequency testing equipment or circuits. Knowledgeable in system architecture and specifications. Optimizes and analyzes the network and improving its performance if necessary. Ensures that reliability requirements are met in the design: these include E.M.C (electromagnetic compatibility), safety, manufacturability and thermal design aspects..

Background/Need: The Rapid Prototyping Group designs and fabricates custom prototypes for multiple groups around the Laboratory. The Group is seeking an experienced RF engineer to work on a variety of short duration (6-18 month) projects that bridge across many disciplines. This position is necessary to complement the range of expertise that we already have in the group and provide multi-disciplinary design, integration and testing of novel prototype systems. The engineer must be hands on and enjoy building hardware, developing and executing functional tests, and troubleshooting hardware prototypes.

Other information relevant to the job requirement?

Roles and Responsibilities:

• The Rapid Prototyping Group seeks an electrical engineer with experience in the design, fabrication, and integration of advanced RF systems. This resource will develop system level RF models and then design, build and test novel engineering prototypes of RF systems.
• The engineer will work on a variety of short duration (6- 18 month) projects to providing support to the lead engineers.
• The successful candidate will take direction from and interface directly with other engineers to create the designs for novel RF prototype systems. Experience in RF modeling, design, fabrication and testing of RF systems especially for defense applications (aircraft, ships, and vehicles) are highly desirable.
  Must be able to work collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team environment and demonstrate good written and oral communication skills
• The candidate must be familiar with a variety of RF components, how they affect the design, and how to optimize the design to facilitate ease of fabrication, assembly, and testing.
• The candidate should have the ability to successfully interface with internal and external printed circuit board design shops and production houses for fabrication of the prototypes.
• The Engineer will develop very efficiently packaged RF/electronics systems, and diverse sensors onto a variety of platforms, ranging from land-based demonstrations to small unmanned aerial systems.
• The Engineer must have a blend of design and hands on build and test skills. A primary emphasis remains on practical hands on skills rather than theoretical.

Required Skills:
Starting with the highest importance and ending with the least important:
- Work history that includes hands-on systems design, integration, and test and strong desire to build things.
- Experience with the design of sensor systems for defense applications (radars, communications systems, signal synthesis, other RF systems)
- Experience with RF modeling tools for active and passive RF circuit design (i.e. ADS or Microwave Office, and HFSS, CST, or Feko,).
- Experience with spice tools for circuit design (such as LT spice or other tool)
- Experience with using MATLAB for basic signal processing applications and data analysis
- Experience with (PCB) design tools (i.e.- Mentor Graphics, Altium) and multilayer RF circuit board design -It is mandatory that the candidate be able to work both independently and in highly motivated multidisciplinary small teams.

Preferred Skills:
Starting with the highest importance and ending with the least important:
- Prototype demonstrating full design cycle from initial concept through final tested and validated microwave or millimeter wave RF product
- Experience with HFSS for microwave or millimeter wave design and analysis including filters.
- Experience with multi-layer RF printed circuit board design using 3D RF modeling tools (HFSS etc.) for implementing microwave passives and interconnects.
This would include TEM, quasi-TEM, and non TEM transmission line structures, couplers, filters, power dividers, layer transitions, connector launches etc.
- Experience with frequency planning and RF cascade design and analysis.
- Experience with design and or analysis of digital signal processing, communications systems, and or control system applications using MATLAB
- Experience with Mentor Graphics printed circuit board design tools
- Experience with simple microcontroller coding
- Prefer candidates with recent relevant engineering experience versus candidates who are primarily performing a managerial role in prototype development.

Others:

Clearance- Interim clearance is sufficient for start on this position
Work:-This position will be onsite for the start of the position. After the ramp up period, there will be flexibility for more remote work (like 1 day remote).
Interview:-Interview process will be a first-round interview as a pre-screen and then a second round interview with the wider audience