RF Engineer

Planet•San Francisco, CA

24d•Hybrid

About The Position

Welcome to Planet. We believe in using space to help life on Earth. Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history. This constellation delivers an unprecedented dataset of empirical information via a revolutionary cloud-based platform to authoritative figures in commercial, environmental, and humanitarian sectors. We are both a space company and data company all rolled into one. Customers and users across the globe use Planet's data to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and solve our world’s toughest obstacles. As we control every component of hardware design, manufacturing, data processing, and software engineering, our office is a truly inspiring mix of experts from a variety of domains. We have a people-centric approach toward culture and community and we strive to iterate in a way that puts our team members first and prepares our company for growth. Join Planet and be a part of our mission to change the way people see the world. Planet is a global company with employees working remotely world wide and joining us from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands. Please review the Internal Transfers Wiki page for guidance on the internal transfer process at Planet. About the Role: Planet is working on the next generation small satellite bus that will host a high resolution optical imaging payload (Pelican) and a hyperspectral payload (Carbon Mapper). Planet has continuously iterated and developed small spacecraft communication systems including board level hardware, antennas, and ground station equipment that produce record data rates. Our system consists of transceivers in several bands, optical laser communications systems and a worldwide network of ground stations. We are seeking an experienced RF and Microwave Engineer to develop our next-generation onboard links, ground radios and antenna systems that push the frontiers of satellite communications. You will make evolutionary and revolutionary improvements in their performance, reliability and cost, including the design of next-generation S-band through Ka-band radios and a variety of antennas as well as work with vendors on various design projects. You will be responsible for RF hardware development, comms systems integration, test and interface with cross functional teams - electrical, software and mechanical engineers to address challenging design issues. You will conduct environmental and EMI/EMC testing on communication subsystems and get them ready for flight. You will work closely with systems engineering, missions, spacecraft integration and manufacturing teams to ensure mission success. The ideal candidate will be excited by working in an agile, fast-paced environment, even in times of uncertainty and ambiguity. This is a full-time, hybrid role which will require you to work from our San Francisco office 3 days per week.

Requirements

Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering
2+ years of engineering excellence designing and maturing RF & MW systems, transceivers, antennas and/or SDRs to market, ability to review low-level design decisions and understand their impact to the larger system/mission
Solid fundamentals in RF/MW, electromagnetics, and signal processing
Ability to adapt and learn a multitude of skills in order to develop/contribute to the design of a complex system including but not limited to active RF circuits, transceivers, PLL synthesizers, mixers, switches, RF amplifiers, oscillators, detectors, filters, and other building blocks for space and ground station applications
Excellent documentation, presentation and communication skills

Nice To Haves

3+ years of relevant experience
Additional education or certifications in Electrical Engineering
Experience with Altium or similar EDA tools, high-density PCB design, high speed clock trees
Knowledge of digital communications theory and associated signal processing algorithms for both narrowband and wideband data transmission systems
Experience with software Defined Radio (SDR) platforms and respective signal processing libraries (ex.: GNURadio)
Experience in Linux, Python, and data analysis tools
Understanding of cross-team dependencies including electrical, software, mechanical, thermal, structural, manufacturing and Space environmental

Responsibilities

RF/MW hardware transceiver and circuit design, simulation, instrumentation, test and characterization
EMI/RFI testing and mitigation
Antenna design, simulation and testing (ADS, HFSS)
Validation and Verification of radios and antennas pre-shipment and validation of radio performance on orbit after satellite launch
Support of RF/MW/Optical Comms system bringup, integration and test