Principal Mixed-Signal Design Engineer, Data Converters

K2 Space•Seattle, WA

About The Position

K2 is seeking a Principal Mixed-Signal Design Engineer, Data Converters to lead the architecture and development of wideband, high-performance data converters and associated analog front-ends for advanced mixed-signal SoCs. This is a hands-on technical leadership role with significant ownership, encompassing architecture and technology tradeoffs through circuit design, integration, and silicon validation. The role involves working with cutting-edge technology in a fast-paced, high-growth environment at a company building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown.

Requirements

MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field with significant industry experience in high-performance analog/mixed-signal IC design.
Deep expertise designing GHz-class and/or multi-GS/s ADCs and DACs.
Strong understanding of converter architectures such as SAR, pipeline, time-interleaved, flash/folding, current-steering DACs, and hybrid architectures.
Demonstrated ability to translate system requirements into converter architectures and circuit-level specifications.
Strong experience with wideband analog/RF signal paths, sampling circuits, clocking, references, and low-noise/high-linearity circuit design.
Experience designing high-performance analog circuits in FinFET technologies.
Strong understanding of converter impairments, including jitter, noise, distortion, mismatch, timing skew, interleaving errors, and calibration.
Experience taking complex analog/mixed-signal ICs from architecture through tapeout and silicon bring-up.
Deep proficiency with industry-standard analog/mixed-signal design, simulation, and verification tools.
Must be a "U.S. person" as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15 or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.

Nice To Haves

Experience with RF-sampling or direct-RF ADC/DAC architectures.
Experience developing converters with multi-GHz instantaneous bandwidth.
Experience with digitally assisted analog design and background/foreground calibration.
Experience integrating converters into large digital-heavy SoCs.
Experience with advanced packaging, high-speed I/O, and signal-integrity considerations for wideband mixed-signal devices.
Experience helping build new methodologies and silicon platforms from the ground up.

Responsibilities

Architect and design high-speed, wideband ADCs and DACs targeting demanding RF and mixed-signal applications.
Lead converter architecture selection and trade studies, balancing bandwidth, sampling rate, resolution/ENOB, linearity, power, area, and implementation risk.
Design supporting wideband analog front-ends, including ADC input networks, track-and-hold/sampling circuits, DAC output stages, references, biasing, clocking, and calibration circuitry.
Develop high-performance circuits in advanced FinFET CMOS technologies and address the unique analog design challenges associated with deeply scaled nodes.
Own designs from concept and behavioral modeling through transistor-level implementation, layout, verification, and silicon characterization.
Develop calibration and correction techniques for impairments and work closely with DSP/systems engineers on mixed-signal algorithms.
Define converter specifications and interfaces in collaboration with systems, RF, digital, package, and verification teams.
Drive converter integration into complex mixed-signal SoCs, including power, clocking, signal integrity, and physical implementation considerations.
Help establish data-converter design methodologies, IP, simulation infrastructure, and best practices from the ground up.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to analog and mixed-signal engineers.