Principal Radio Frequency Engineer

Canyon Aeroconnect • Prescott, AZ

4d • Onsite

About The Position

Canyon AeroConnect is hiring a Principal Radio Frequency Engineer for a paid internship. Candidates must be currently enrolled in an accredited industry trade certification, college, or university program. The role is onsite at the company’s Prescott, Arizona facility and is not eligible for remote work. It must meet Export Control compliance requirements, so applicants must be a “US Person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15.

The engineer leads RF architecture, design evaluation, integration, verification, and sustaining engineering for VHF/UHF and wideband airborne radio platforms. The role addresses RF performance and troubleshooting from circuit and module through transceiver and installed-system levels, and provides technical leadership across engineering, manufacturing, test, quality, supply chain, program management, customers, and suppliers. Work is primarily office- and laboratory-based, with occasional factory-floor activity and potential program-related travel. The employee must follow site safety, ESD, quality, document-control, and information-security procedures.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in an accredited industry trade certification, college, or university program.
• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field and typically 8+ years of relevant RF design, integration, verification, or sustaining-engineering experience; comparable expertise may be considered.
• Deep practical knowledge of RF communication systems and troubleshooting at circuit, module, transceiver, and installed-system levels.
• Proficiency with spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, signal generators, power meters, noise-figure and sensitivity methods, and relevant RF test automation.
• Strong understanding of RF measurements, uncertainty, calibration, link budgets, system-level interference mechanisms, and systematic root-cause investigations.
• Ability to independently lead technical reviews and produce clear, defensible analysis and verification documentation.
• Must be a “US Person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15 to meet Export Control compliance requirements.
• Must work onsite at the Prescott, Arizona facility; remote work is not available.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with airborne communications, public-safety radio, mission-critical transceivers, wideband receivers, or avionics integration.
• Working knowledge of DO-160, MIL-STD-461, TIA-603, AS9100, and controlled certification or qualification evidence processes.
• Experience with RF simulation and design tools such as ADS, AWR, HFSS, or equivalents; scripting, test automation, and statistical performance analysis.
• Experience investigating cosite interference, receiver desense, antenna coupling, RF filters and preselectors, synthesizer behavior, and transmitter-receiver interactions.
• Proven success leading design improvements through qualification, manufacturing transfer, field reliability recovery, or product sustainment.

Responsibilities

• Lead RF architecture, design evaluation, integration, verification, and sustaining engineering for VHF/UHF and wideband airborne radio platforms on assigned programs.
• Evaluate receiver and transmitter performance against allocated requirements, including sensitivity, selectivity, blocking, intermodulation, desensitization, squelch, phase noise, spurious responses, spectral purity, output power, modulation quality, and frequency stability.
• Develop, review, and execute RF test plans, acceptance criteria, characterization methods, and requirement-to-evidence matrices; reconcile verification results across component, module, LRU, and system levels.
• Diagnose RF issues involving front-end filtering, preselectors, switching, synthesizers, mixers, amplifiers, power amplifiers, impedance matching, and RF/control interfaces.
• Lead cosite and interference investigations, including antenna isolation, adjacent-channel effects, filter-bank behavior, and installation-level interactions; provide evidence-based recommendations.
• Provide technical direction for RF calibration, alignment, automated production testing, test limits, and measurement-system integrity; work with Test and Manufacturing Engineering to improve repeatability and yield.
• Plan and interpret RF environmental and EMC/EMI qualification as applicable to program baselines, including DO-160, MIL-STD-461, and relevant radio-performance standards such as TIA-603.
• Lead failure analysis and corrective actions for field returns, production escapes, and reliability trends; define experiments and validate permanent fixes.
• Review designs, customer discussions, supplier assessments, engineering changes, qualification reports, and configuration-control decisions as an RF technical reviewer.
• Mentor less experienced engineers, promote requirements-driven problem solving, and communicate technical tradeoffs, cost and schedule risks, and evidence gaps to leadership.
• Collaborate across engineering, manufacturing, test, quality, supply chain, program management, and external technical stakeholders.
• Follow site safety, ESD, quality, document-control, and information-security procedures.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Principal