Principal / Sr. Principal RF Microwave Design Engineer

Northrop Grumman•Linthicum Heights, MD

47d•Onsite

About The Position

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history. Northrop Grumman Space Systems sector delivers a decisive advantage to its customers through software-defined, hardware-enabled solutions. The Electrical Design and Analysis (EDA) section in Linthicum, MD enables these hardware solutions by providing RF microwave architecture, design, verification, and support expertise across a wide variety of electronic sensor products. Our engineers work on complex, leading edge, high reliability electronics supporting different space platforms. NGSS engineers share a great sense of pride knowing their contributions have a direct effect on the safety and security of the country and its allies. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity, teamwork, and bringing your whole self to work to accomplish the mission while learning and having fun along the way. Our department is fertile ground for all experience levels to become part of our growing team and contribute to our goals. The department offers opportunities to grow on a technical track both broad and deep as well as explore project leadership or management positions. This role will support our Payload and Ground Systems Division and Remote Sensing Programs (RSP) Business Unit. EDA is seeking engineers with experience and interest in RF/Microwave and Mixed Signal circuit card assembly (CCA) design and test including: Designing, modeling, and verifying RF/microwave and mixed signal CCAs Utilize analysis, simulations and prototyping to develop CCA designs Predicting assembly level performance through selecting materials, components, and packaging approaches, RF chain analysis, electromagnetic simulation, data collection and analysis, and other modeling techniques THIS IS A CONTINGENT ROLE AWAITING PROGRAM AWARD AND FUNDING WITH AN ANTICIPATED START DATE OF JAN 2026 THIS ROLE IS ON-SITE

Requirements

Principal RF Microwave Design Engineer: Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering or comparable STEM degree minimum of 5 years of relevant engineering experience (3 years with MS degree; or 0 years with PhD)
Sr. principal RF Microwave Design Engineer : Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering or comparable STEM degree minimum of 8 years of relevant engineering experience (6+ years with MS degree; or 3+ years with PhD)
Expert proficiency with industry standard RF/Microwave modeling, simulation and printed circuit board design tools (e.g. ANSYS HFSS/Maxwell, CST Microwave, Eagleware/Genesys, Keysight ADS, Xpedition, Altium, FEKO, TICRA)
RF budgeting, frequency planning, RF chain analysis and modeling
Proficient in RF/Microwave and mixed signal circuit design, schematic capture, and PWB/board layout
Completed and/or led multiple board designs from schematic capture to board release
Demonstrated ability to analyze and troubleshoot RF subsystems, complex mixed-signal ECAs and RF modules using schematics, component design documents, and basic lab test equipment
Design, create, and modify Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) to support I&T activities
Ability to provide solutions to a broad variety of RF/Microwave design and test related problems of complex difficulty
Demonstrated Technical Team Leadership and ability to work on multi-discipline engineering teams and communicate clearly within integrated product team leads
Easily adapt to design challenges to meet program goals and deadlines
US Citizenship is required
MUST have active Secret clearance at time of application with the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI w/Poly to meet business needs

Nice To Haves

Active Top Secret / SCI security clearance
Experience in Worst Case Circuit Analysis (WCCA) including logic compatibility, component derating, timing analysis, signal and power integrity analyses
Signal integrity analysis (SERDES, Bit error rates, jitter components and contributors, board to board analysis)
Expertise in working with receiver/exciters, conducting RF performance analysis, and implementing digital beamforming
High-speed digital circuit design experience
Familiarity with Point of Load (PoL) design
Experience in integrating FPGA/Digital controls on the bench (no VHDL experience required)
Understanding of basic signal processing
RF budgeting, frequency planning, RF chain analysis and modeling
Component selection and/or custom component requirements flow down and trades
Ceramic and organic printed circuit board materials, design, fabrication, and assembly processes
Integrated Circuit packaging techniques including chip-and-wire, QFN, flip-chip
Product life cycle support from concept through production support
Designing for high reliability, space requirements and environments
AESA / phased array, Radar, SIGINT, or SATCOM experience

Responsibilities

Designing, modeling, and verifying RF/microwave and mixed signal CCAs
Utilize analysis, simulations and prototyping to develop CCA designs
Predicting assembly level performance through selecting materials, components, and packaging approaches, RF chain analysis, electromagnetic simulation, data collection and analysis, and other modeling techniques