Senior RF Electrical Engineer (Amplifiers)

Northwood Space • Los Angeles, CA

1d • $140,000 - $226,000

About The Position

Northwood is a space infrastructure company developing a global network of phased array ground stations for satellite communications. The Senior RF Electrical Engineer will own Ka-band high-power amplifier design for Prism, Northwood’s 2.4-meter parabolic antenna for high-throughput satellite links. This senior individual-contributor role covers the full amplifier lifecycle, from architecture and prototyping through characterization and production. The engineer will collaborate with antenna, mechanical, thermal, and test engineers and should have experience designing, building, and debugging high-power RF hardware at microwave or millimeter-wave frequencies.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or a related engineering discipline.
• At least 5 years of RF hardware design experience.
• Hands-on experience designing and building power amplifiers at microwave or millimeter-wave frequencies (Ku-band or higher).
• Experience taking RF hardware from design through laboratory bring-up, characterization, and debugging.
• Proficiency with RF and electromagnetic simulation tools, such as Keysight ADS, Cadence AWR, Ansys HFSS, or CST.
• Comfort using RF test equipment, including network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, and power meters.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree or PhD in electrical engineering focused on RF or microwave design.
• Ka-band solid-state power amplifier (SSPA) or block upconverter (BUC) design for satellite communications.
• GaN MMIC-based amplifier design, including device selection, matching, stability analysis, and bias networks.
• Power-combiner design using waveguide, spatial, or planar approaches.
• Waveguide component and transition design, including waveguide-to-microstrip transitions, rotary joints, and feeds.
• Thermal management and packaging for high-power RF electronics.
• Experience with linearity and modulated-signal performance, including IMD, ACPR, EVM, spectral regrowth, and linearization techniques.
• Satcom transmit compliance experience, including emission masks and regulatory limits.
• Design for manufacturing, production-test development, and reliability qualification.

Responsibilities

• Design Ka-band high-power amplifiers for Prism, from lineup and architecture through schematic, layout, and hardware bring-up.
• Develop power-combining approaches that scale output power while protecting efficiency, linearity, and reliability.
• Build electromagnetic and circuit simulation models for amplifier stages, matching networks, combiners, and transitions to evaluate performance before hardware development.
• Design supporting circuitry, including bias and sequencing, power conditioning, protection, monitoring, and digital control interfaces.
• Own thermal and packaging considerations for high-dissipation RF hardware in partnership with mechanical and thermal engineers.
• Characterize amplifier performance, including output power, compression, PAE, linearity, spurious emissions, and stability; troubleshoot integrated transmit-chain performance.
• Drive designs through reliability testing and into production, including test definition and manufacturing support.
• Support integration and field troubleshooting of deployed Prism units.

What This Job Offers

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