Sr. Antenna Engineer (Starship)

SpaceX • Hawthorne, CA

3d

About The Position

This team is responsible for RF engineering for the Starship vehicles. This includes both hardware product development (of radios/antennas), as well as ownership of the comm system architecture, analysis, and verification. Hardware development involves managing the development of your product, from design concept through prototyping, qualification testing, and moving into stable production. Systems roles involve extreme ownership of a system from design concept, through integration and test, and even support analysis or on-console for flight. Work may vary in frequency band from UHF (400 MHz) through Ka-band (40 GHz). We also do work outside of communications, including GPS and radar for sensing. We support both the orbital starship vehicle (current development that can be observed in Starbase) as well as the HLS lunar missions for NASA Artemis. We own communications from the baseband (FPGA + modem) through the passband (RF + antenna), and we work closely with mechanical, production, and integration teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline
• 5+ years of relevant professional or project experience in antenna design/build/test and electromagnetic simulations

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree or PhD in electrical engineering with research/thesis work on RF or antennas
• Experience with test equipment such as spectrum analyzer, signal generator, network analyzer, power meters, and RF passive components
• Proficiency with basic RF concepts such as impedance matching, linear and aperture antennas, smith chart, power handling metrics (IIP2, IMD), microwave network analysis, RF filter design
• Experience with near-field or far-field chamber design and operation
• Familiar with antenna measurement techniques and tools such as anechoic/reverb chambers, near field EM measurements
• Experience with electrical schematic capture software (Altium, Orcad or similar)
• Familiar with RF circuit simulation tools for cascade analysis: AWR, ADS, Genesys
• Experience with electromagnetics simulation tools such as HFSS, CST, Savant, or similar – including tradeoffs of FEM, MoM, FDTD, and PO methods
• Experience with Python, MATLAB, or C/C++ programming for data analysis or test equipment interfacing
• Basic CAD skills for prototype designs and working directly with mechanical engineers
• Experience with variety of antenna types - including reflectors or phased array design
• Excellent communication and documentation skills, and ability to collaborate with other engineering disciplines

Responsibilities

• Design of antennas for communications and sensors, in VHF through Ka-band
• Build and characterization of antenna, feed, and front-end prototypes
• Development of measurement systems to support design
• Analysis of wireless systems (antenna isolation, patterns with large structures, propagation effects, etc.)
• Multidisciplinary collaboration to improve RF manufacturing, mechanical integration, and testability
• Provide antenna expertise and RF radiation expertise (plasma attenuation, shielding, etc) to various aspects of the spacecraft

Benefits

• comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage
• access to a 401(k) retirement plan
• short and long-term disability insurance
• life insurance
• paid parental leave
• various other discounts and perks
• 3 weeks of paid vacation
• 10 or more paid holidays per year
• paid sick leave

What This Job Offers

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