Senior RF Engineer, Haven

Vast is looking for a Senior RF Engineer to lead the development of the RF and Communication systems that will be required for an artificial-gravity human-rated space station.

As a Senior RF Engineer, you will architect complex RF systems and develop RF components for an artificial gravity space station. Your work will involve developing communication systems for the Station to Ground and Station to Visiting Spacecraft. Your input will be vital in designing and developing new and existing RF hardware to support the mission.

Responsibilities: 

• Develop RF telemetry and tracking systems for the next generation of crewed space stations, including hardware, software and operations for space station tracking, mission data, payload data, and communications with visiting vehicles.
• Perform architecture trade studies, requirements definition, component design, and manage development for various radios and/or laser systems (S-band, X-band, K-Band, infrared/optical, TDRS, C2V2, etc.)
• Design, model and simulation of complex antenna and RF components. 
• Fabricate and characterize prototypes of antennas, passives, and RF front ends.
• Contribute at the component and/or system level (depending on experience and ability)
• Full life-cycle ownership for related systems, including development, testing, integration, operations and maintenance for related hardware (interfaces, modems, radios, antennas, etc.)
• Provide technical direction relating to RF systems and set top-level requirements to hardware agile development teams, integration, and test personnel.
• Partner with manufacturing/integration engineers to develop work instructions and installation procedures for integrating and testing RF hardware. 

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or similar
• 5+ years of experience with RF design, analysis, and/or unit level testing (significant academic projects, internships, and traditional professional experience all qualify)
• Experience with the design and integration of RF systems consisting of radio transmitters, receivers, LNAs, PAs, couplers, filters, etc.
• Experience with simulation tools such as SPICE, ADS, CST, HFSS, etc.
• Experience with RF test equipment such as Spectrum Analyzers, VNAs, Power Meters, Cable Analyzers, SDRs, etc.
• Experience with electrical schematic capture software (Altium, Orcad or similar)
• Experience mentoring engineers in engineering best-practices and RF technical principles
• Comfortable communicating deeply technical topics to a wide variety of audiences

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in electrical engineering or similar
• Ability to creatively solve problems and weigh against multi-disciplinary requirements together while assessing risk and making design and development decisions 
• Ability to creatively solve problems and bring multiple disciplines together while assessing risk and making design and development decisions with incomplete data set
• Strong sense of accountability and integrity with excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Knowledge of space radiation effects on RF electronics and antennas
• Prior experience with vehicle electrical bonding requirements
• Ability to thrive at an early-stage startup where you will have the opportunity to help create and optimize key systems and processes
• Familiarity with antenna measurement techniques and tools such as anechoic/reverb chambers, near field EM measurements
• Experience with software programming: Matlab, LabVIEW, Python, C/C++, JS, etc.
• Experience with full-lifecycle product development
• Experience with designing electronics for spaceflight environment, verifying workmanship and operability through environmental test (random vibration, shock, thermal, burn-in, and TVAC)