Cowboy Space
Senior RF Engineer
$219K–$276K
San Carlos, California · On-site · Senior · Full-time · Posted Sep 15, 2026
- Experience
- 5+ years of professional experience designing RF circuitry for high-speed communication systems.
- Education
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, RF Engineering, Photonics, or related field.
- Visa sponsorship
- Applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
About the job
Designs, integrates, and validates board-level RF hardware and signal chains for spacecraft optical communication systems, from circuit architecture through flight qualification.
What you'll do
- Design RF circuitry, signal chains, and high-speed PCBs for optical communication links, including laser drivers, modulators, and photodetector front-ends.
- Analyze, simulate, measure, and debug RF/optical link performance, including signal integrity and high-speed characterization.
- Collaborate across optics, photonics, PCB, firmware, mechanical, thermal, and systems teams to integrate and test communication terminals.
What they ask for
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, RF Engineering, Photonics, or a related field.
- 5+ years of professional experience designing RF circuitry for high-speed communication systems.
- Hands-on experience designing RF circuits for optical communication links and direct experience with free-space/open-space laser communication systems.
- Experience with 1 Gbps to 50 Gbps RF communication links, RF PCB design/layout, RF simulation and PCB design tools, and high-speed lab measurement equipment.
Nice to have
- Knowledge and hands-on experience with opto-silicon (silicon photonics) design and integration.
- Experience with space-qualified or radiation-tolerant RF/optical hardware design.
Pay
$219,000 - $276,000 USD annually (base salary)
Tools
Keysight ADS, Ansys HFSS, Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro, S-parameters, TDR, BERTs, Vector network analyzers
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative