Flight Telecom Systems Engineer II

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

2d•$114,192 - $134,160

About The Position

The Flight Communications & Tracking Section at JPL is seeking a Flight Telecom Systems Engineer II for its Communication System Engineering and Operations Group. The role supports space telecommunications systems for deep-space interplanetary and Earth-orbiting missions, as well as lunar and Mars relay networks. The engineer partners with senior staff across the product lifecycle, from early concept development and prototyping through engineering and flight-model implementation, testing, and flight operations. The position combines telecom systems engineering and mission operations. Work includes developing requirements and interfaces, performing link analyses and system evaluations, conducting simulations and hardware tests, preparing design and verification documentation, and supporting reviews, integration, and delivery. The engineer also helps manage technical risks, performance budgets, trade studies, and schedules, and contributes to proposals and mission concept studies. During flight operations, the engineer monitors telecom subsystem health, performance, and link status; supports ground-station passes and mission coverage; helps investigate anomalies; and develops operational procedures and software tools for analysis and automation. The role requires close collaboration with spacecraft teams, ground-station providers, and other organizations, and may involve domestic and international travel for testing and mission support.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Hardware Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or Mathematics and at least 3 years of related experience; or a master’s degree in a similar technical discipline and at least 1 year of related experience; or a Ph.D. in a similar technical discipline and at least 0 years of related experience.
Strong communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to collaborate across a technical team and build trust with peers and senior engineers.
Initiative and ownership, with a record of following through on assigned responsibilities with minimal oversight.
Emerging leadership qualities and a desire to grow into a formal technical leadership role.
Sound judgment and reliability, demonstrated by increasing responsibility in prior roles or academic/research work.
Willingness to learn, receive feedback, and develop in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.
Ability to work independently under general guidance, choose appropriate methods, and escalate significant risks or roadblocks.
Ability to analyze complex technical factors and apply engineering judgment to resolve significant problems within assigned scope.
Creativity and innovative thinking in addressing technical issues.
Ability to collaborate with groups and organizations inside and outside JPL, and adapt to frequent changes in a rapid-paced concurrent engineering environment.
Experience designing, implementing, and testing electronic hardware for complex spaceflight systems.
Proficiency in Python, Jupyter Notebook, and MATLAB for system analysis and automation.
Strong background in RF systems, Software-Defined Radios, digital and analog hardware design, and embedded software or firmware.
Hands-on experience with RF test equipment such as spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, noise figure meters, and bit error rate testers.
Hands-on experience testing systems, including test planning, procedure development, data analysis, and complex-system debugging and troubleshooting.
Experience in a multidisciplinary systems-engineering or test team, such as telecom, radar, spacecraft, avionics, electrical integration, spacecraft assembly electrical, spacecraft functional, or telecom compatibility.
Experience designing telecom subsystems for space applications, managing link budgets, and reducing link uncertainties.
Knowledge of processes used to verify and validate system design requirements.
Ability to support domestic and international travel for testing and mission support.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of Laboratory and NASA policies and procedures and government regulations across a range of applications.
Direct experience with flight telecom component development and delivery.
Understanding of advanced telecommunications principles and techniques, including modulation and coding, antennas and front-end RF hardware, link design and modeling, networking hardware and protocols, radio testing, and test automation.
Experience with Spacecraft, Planet, Instrument, C-matrix, and Events (SPICE) kernels and toolkit for spacecraft trajectory modeling in telecom link analysis.
Proficiency with tools for numerical analysis, electronic design, firmware, embedded software, or testing automation.
Familiarity with requirements tracking and management systems such as Jama.
Experience estimating costs for spacecraft components and subsystems.
Familiarity with DSN, NSN, ESTRACK, and commercial ground-station providers such as KSAT.
Experience with spectral-mask regulations and measurement techniques.
Experience with multipath and ray-tracing analyses for base-station rover communication links.
Experience developing, documenting, and executing radio system tests, including formal verification and validation tracking for requirements fulfillment.
Experience designing and testing Software Defined Radios.

Responsibilities

Provide telecom systems engineering support for flight telecom subsystems on deep-space, Earth-orbiting, lunar, and Mars relay missions.
Support teammates, share knowledge, communicate progress and risks, and contribute to a collaborative and safety-conscious team culture.
Develop telecom component and subsystem requirements and flow requirements down in response to project and flight-system needs.
Prepare interface agreements between telecom and other spacecraft subsystems.
Conduct system-level link analyses using statistically derived link parameters.
Evaluate telecom components, algorithms, subsystems, and end-to-end system performance with other engineers.
Conduct software simulations and hardware tests, and summarize results to verify telecom system functionality.
Present analyses and technical results at peer-level design and technical reviews.
Contribute technical content, data, and graphics to proposals and Concept Study Reports; serve as a telecom subject matter expert on concept development teams.
Track and document mass, power, and data-volume specifications and allocations for assigned telecom components.
Perform or independently review reliability analyses and interface failure-mode analyses.
Draft or update telecom functional descriptions, communications behavior-manager documents, interface control documents, requirements documents, test reports, design descriptions, and other design-control documents.
Create test plans, procedures, and reports aligned with verification and validation objectives, and support development of V&V plans.
Support spacecraft Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations tests, including subsystem functional, ground-station compatibility, and environmental testing.
Collaborate with DSN, NSN, ESTRACK, and commercial ground-station providers.
Support mission and concept proposal teams and JPL’s Team X concurrent engineering team with telecom expertise, design, analysis, and cost support.
Support preparation and documentation of Engineering Change Requests and waivers, including Change Control Board review.
Support Hardware Review/Certification Requirements and Certificate of Flight Readiness reviews for flight deliveries.
Support the product manager with risk management, performance error budgets, trade studies, design integration, and delivery schedules.
Serve as a telecom operations engineer for flight missions, monitoring subsystem health, performance, and link status throughout mission phases.
Support ground-station pass planning and execution, command verification, telemetry acquisition, and assessment of link performance against pre-pass predictions.
Participate in shift-based mission operations coverage and assess telecom telemetry during and after passes, flagging off-nominal performance for follow-up.
Support telecom anomaly response, root-cause analysis, and recommendations for corrective actions in coordination with the flight team.
Develop and maintain flight rules, standard operating procedures, contingency and anomaly-response procedures, and operations handbooks.
Develop and implement software tools, such as Python, Jupyter, and MATLAB applications, to automate telemetry trending, limit checking, and anomaly detection.
Build and maintain dashboards and analysis tools that compare telemetry with link-budget predictions and performance models.
Capture flight-operations lessons learned and incorporate them into procedures, tools, and training materials.