Chief Engineer Of Rf Front Ends

Bascom Hunter Technologies•O'Fallon, MO

8d•Onsite

About The Position

Bascom Hunter is hiring a Chief Engineer of RF Front Ends to lead the architecture and design of custom RF front ends for airborne, ground-vehicle, and shipboard defense platforms. The role is the senior technical authority for RF subsystems, from concept and trade studies through qualification and production. It is an onsite, hands-on leadership position in O’Fallon, Missouri. The engineer will perform simulation, review layouts, and work at the bench alongside the team. With no separate systems engineering group, the role also owns RF requirements, performance budgets, traceability, and verification strategy end to end. The position sets product technical vision and architecture, leads RF and microwave circuit design and integration, and establishes verification and qualification approaches. It also provides technical leadership, mentors RF engineers, supports program planning and proposals, and participates in customer technical discussions. All positions are subject to background investigations, including criminal history and identity checks.

Requirements

U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain or hold a DoD security clearance; clearance level is not specified.
Master’s or Ph.D. in Electrical, RF, or Microwave Engineering; a bachelor’s degree with extensive relevant experience may be considered.
15+ years in RF, microwave, or millimeter-wave hardware development, including receiver and transmitter design and end-to-end RF performance analysis.
Proficiency with RF simulation tools such as Keysight ADS, Cadence AWR, Ansys HFSS, or equivalent.
Proficiency with RF test equipment, including network, spectrum, and noise figure analyzers.
Track record of leading multidisciplinary teams, defining requirements, and taking hardware through qualification.

Nice To Haves

Experience with microwave and millimeter-wave front ends; frequency bands are not specified.
Experience with phased-array, multichannel, wideband, or high-dynamic-range architectures.
Experience with RF packaging, thermal analysis, and EMC.
Experience with production test and yield improvement.
Background in radar, electronic warfare, SATCOM, or other defense and aerospace RF applications.

Responsibilities

Set the technical vision and architecture for RF front-end products and lead associated trade studies.
Define RF performance requirements and system budgets, including noise figure, gain, linearity, dynamic range, output power, phase noise, isolation, and spurious performance.
Evaluate emerging RF technologies, components, and packaging approaches to support product roadmaps and manage obsolescence.
Lead and contribute hands-on to RF and microwave circuit design, simulation, electromagnetic modeling, and layout.
Guide design of RF modules, wideband receivers, transmit chains, and multichannel front ends within power, thermal, EMC, and packaging constraints.
Integrate RF front ends with antennas, frequency generation, DSP, and platform systems; resolve issues such as spurs, coupling, oscillation, and desensitization.
Establish verification strategies and acceptance criteria, and approve test plans, test reports, and qualification evidence.
Lead lab characterization, environmental qualification, and root-cause investigations of RF performance issues.
Serve as the final technical authority for RF front-end design decisions and lead design and architecture reviews.
Mentor RF engineers and establish design guidelines, review criteria, and reusable design practices.
Partner with program managers on technical baselines, risk, and schedule; support proposals and customer technical discussions.
Own RF requirements, performance budgets, traceability, and verification strategy end to end.