Senior RF Desense Engineer

Zipline • South San Francisco, CA

29d

About The Position

Zipline is seeking a Senior RF Desense Engineer to lead the architecture, analysis, mitigation, validation, and long-term improvement of RF desense performance across our autonomous aircraft and ground infrastructure. You will own receiver desense engineering from early system architecture through hardware integration, validation, manufacturing, certification, and field deployment. You will work across wireless platforms supporting 4G LTE, 5G NR, GNSS, Wi-Fi, ADS-B, UAT, Bluetooth, ISM radios, emerging Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, and future air-to-ground communication systems, ensuring receivers maintain robust performance despite increasingly dense RF and electronic environments. This role also owns the end-to-end electromagnetic shielding architecture across Zipline's wireless platforms. You will define shielding strategies spanning RF integrated circuits, front-end modules, connectors, cable harnesses, line-replaceable units (LRUs), subsystem enclosures, and complete products to control both internally generated and externally coupled interference. Working closely with electrical, mechanical, antenna, manufacturing, reliability, and systems teams, you will develop scalable shielding solutions that enable simultaneous operation of multiple high-power transmitters and high-sensitivity receivers—including precision GNSS systems—while meeting aggressive performance, reliability, manufacturability, weight, cost, and product lifetime requirements. While the primary focus of this role is receiver desense, you will also support broader RF coexistence efforts by contributing to system-level interference analysis, radio scheduling strategies, and multi-radio integration. You will collaborate closely with antenna, RF front-end, electrical, embedded software, systems, mechanical, flight test, manufacturing, reliability, certification, and cloud engineering teams to ensure Zipline's wireless systems perform reliably under real-world operating conditions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical field.
• Typically 7 or more years of professional experience developing RF hardware or wireless communication systems for production products.
• Strong understanding of RF receiver architecture, cascaded receiver performance, sensitivity, noise figure, blocking, dynamic range, selectivity, and receiver optimization.
• Demonstrated experience investigating and resolving RF desense issues within complex wireless systems.
• Demonstrated experience developing shielding architectures from RF circuit level through complete products, including PCB shielding, connector shielding, cable shielding, enclosure design, subsystem isolation, LRU-level shielding, and product-level electromagnetic containment.
• Strong understanding of electromagnetic coupling mechanisms including conducted emissions, radiated emissions, harmonics, intermodulation, passive intermodulation, broadband digital noise, common-mode currents, grounding topology, shielding effectiveness, enclosure resonance, and practical mitigation techniques.
• Experience designing products that integrate multiple simultaneous wireless technologies including LTE, 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ADS-B, UAT, ISM radios, or other wireless communication systems.
• Experience developing shielding strategies for platforms requiring simultaneous operation of high-power transmitters alongside high-sensitivity receivers, including precision GNSS systems.
• Experience balancing shielding effectiveness with mechanical design, thermal management, manufacturability, environmental robustness, serviceability, and long-term product reliability.
• Familiarity with multi-radio systems and the interaction between RF front ends, antennas, digital electronics, embedded software, power electronics, and mechanical structures.
• Experience taking RF hardware from concept through integration, verification, certification, and production.
• Familiarity with RF PCB layout, transmission lines, grounding, shielding, power integrity, signal integrity, and electromagnetic compatibility.
• Hands-on experience with spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, vector signal analyzers, signal generators, EMI receivers, power meters, near-field probes, OTA measurement systems, and RF measurement equipment.
• Experience validating shielding effectiveness using near-field scanning, conducted and radiated emissions testing, chamber testing, susceptibility testing, and structured RF debugging techniques.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs across multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Ability to operate independently while driving technically complex RF investigations from concept through production.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
• Experience with autonomous aircraft, robotics, aerospace, automotive, or other highly integrated embedded systems.
• Experience supporting RF coexistence validation for complex multi-radio platforms.
• Experience with cellular carrier certification, PTCRB, GCF, and international cellular deployments.
• Familiarity with RF simulation tools such as Keysight ADS, Cadence AWR, Ansys HFSS, CST Studio Suite, Altair FEKO, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience performing EMI/EMC compliance testing, shielding effectiveness characterization, and electromagnetic susceptibility testing.
• Knowledge of RF front-end architectures, antenna integration, MIMO systems, diversity techniques, and advanced LTE/5G radio architectures.
• Familiarity with Python, MATLAB, or equivalent tools for RF analysis, automation, and data processing.
• Experience working directly with RF semiconductor vendors, connector suppliers, shielding material vendors, certification laboratories, contract manufacturers, and wireless module suppliers.

Responsibilities

• Own RF desense architecture, analysis, mitigation, validation, and production support across Zipline aircraft, docks, droids, Zipping Points, and future autonomous logistics platforms.
• Develop receiver desense budgets and performance requirements for next-generation wireless platforms.
• Identify and mitigate receiver sensitivity degradation caused by onboard transmitters, switching power supplies, processors, high-speed digital interfaces, displays, motors, power electronics, and other electronic subsystems.
• Analyze conducted and radiated interference mechanisms including broadband noise coupling, harmonics, spurious emissions, blocking, intermodulation, passive intermodulation, and electromagnetic compatibility.
• Characterize RF coupling paths through PCBs, cables, antennas, enclosures, mechanical structures, power systems, and wiring harnesses.
• Develop practical mitigation strategies including shielding, filtering, grounding, PCB layout optimization, clock management, power supply noise reduction, frequency planning, and antenna isolation improvements.
• Define RF design guidelines that minimize desense risks early in product development.
• Define Zipline's end-to-end electromagnetic shielding architecture spanning RF ICs, front-end modules, PCB assemblies, connectors, cable harnesses, LRUs, subsystem enclosures, and complete products.
• Develop shielding strategies that minimize self-generated and externally coupled RF interference while balancing size, weight, thermal performance, manufacturability, serviceability, reliability, and cost.
• Specify shielding requirements for RF circuits, mixed-signal electronics, switching power supplies, processors, high-speed digital interfaces, motors, and power electronics to prevent receiver degradation.
• Design connector and cable interconnect shielding architectures including shield termination, grounding topology, common-mode current control, cable routing, connector selection, and bonding methods to minimize conducted and radiated emissions.
• Develop subsystem-level shielding strategies defining enclosure construction, gasket selection, aperture control, seam treatment, venting approaches, conductive coatings, and grounding interfaces to achieve predictable electromagnetic isolation.
• Lead product-level shielding architecture to ensure emissions from all subsystems remain below receiver susceptibility thresholds while supporting simultaneous operation of multiple transmitters and sensitive receivers.
• Develop shielding methodologies that enable reliable integration of LTE, 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ADS-B, UAT, ISM radios, telemetry, command-and-control, V2V communications, and future wireless technologies operating concurrently.
• Drive shielding design decisions through simulation, laboratory characterization, near-field scanning, EMI/EMC testing, environmental testing, flight testing, and structured root-cause analysis.
• Establish shielding design standards, verification methodologies, acceptance criteria, production inspection processes, and long-term design guidelines across Zipline's hardware platforms.
• Partner with mechanical engineering to design lightweight, manufacturable shielding solutions that maintain performance over the full environmental and operational life of the product.
• Define shielding strategies that protect high-precision GNSS receivers from onboard interference sources, enabling robust positioning performance under simultaneous multi-radio operation and dynamic flight conditions.
• Perform RF system analysis including receiver sensitivity, cascaded noise figure, blocking performance, dynamic range, interference budgeting, and system margin analysis.
• Collaborate closely with RF front-end and antenna engineers to optimize signal chains, antenna placement, installed performance, and isolation.
• Support PCB layout reviews, grounding strategies, shielding implementation, stack-up definition, and design-for-manufacturing activities.
• Develop laboratory validation methods using spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, vector signal analyzers, signal generators, near-field probes, OTA chambers, EMI receivers, and conducted RF measurements.
• Plan and execute RF desense characterization, conducted and over-the-air testing, environmental qualification, production verification, and flight testing.
• Investigate RF performance issues using laboratory measurements, simulation, production data, and structured root-cause analysis.
• Support RF coexistence activities including multi-radio interference analysis, wireless integration, radio scheduling strategies, and system-level performance optimization.
• Support regulatory and carrier certification activities including FCC, CE, ISED, PTCRB, GCF, carrier acceptance, aviation certifications, and international wireless and EMC certifications.
• Work closely with suppliers and manufacturing partners to establish RF acceptance criteria, production test methods, calibration procedures, shielding validation processes, and quality controls.
• Mentor engineers and help establish RF desense methodologies, shielding architectures, debugging processes, validation standards, and long-term RF performance roadmaps.

Benefits

• Zipline offers one of the industry's most challenging RF environments. Our aircraft, docks, droids, and logistics infrastructure integrate numerous simultaneously operating wireless systems across licensed and unlicensed spectrum while operating in dynamic airborne environments with demanding size, weight, power, reliability, lifetime, and regulatory constraints.
• As a Senior RF Desense Engineer, you will define how electromagnetic interference is prevented—not simply mitigated—across every Zipline platform. Your work will span from RF ICs and front-end modules to connectors, cable harnesses, LRUs, subsystem enclosures, and complete products, establishing the shielding architecture that enables reliable operation of complex multi-radio systems alongside high-precision GNSS receivers.
• Working alongside experts in RF front-end design, antennas, embedded software, mechanical engineering, EMC, manufacturing, and systems engineering, you will build the engineering foundations that allow multiple high-power radios and sensitive receivers to coexist on one of the world's most sophisticated autonomous logistics platforms. Your contributions will directly improve communication reliability, navigation accuracy, operational safety, manufacturability, and long-term product robustness at global scale.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior