Technical Lead RF Design Engineer – Aviation

Garmin International, Inc.•Olathe, KS

11h•Onsite

About The Position

Garmin is seeking a full-time Technical Lead RF Design Engineer – Aviation at its U.S. headquarters in the Greater Kansas City area. The role provides technical leadership and designs RF circuits and subsystems from UHF through X-band using discrete components and RF modules. It applies analytical, simulation, and testing capabilities to deliver safe, reliable, long-lasting performance in safety-critical aviation products. Teaching, mentoring, and developing RF engineering staff across these disciplines are critical responsibilities. The role also involves developing leadership skills, with potential growth into managing RF engineering teams. The engineer leads the architecture, design, and verification of RF receivers, transmitters, power amplifiers, filters, matching networks, and frequency-conversion circuits. The position translates product requirements into circuit specifications, performance budgets, design approaches, and verification plans; leads design reviews; documents design rationale and verification evidence; and guides technical decisions and resolution of complex design problems. It also involves analysis and optimization of small- and large-signal performance, circuit and electromagnetic simulation, rigorous laboratory measurement and correlation, root-cause analysis, and component and RF-module selection with consideration for performance, reliability, manufacturability, and long-term availability. The role collaborates with electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, and test teams, communicates technical risks and decisions, and fulfills project commitments. It teaches, mentors, and develops RF engineers through practical instruction, constructive design feedback, and assignments that build technical judgment and independent problem-solving capability.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field, or equivalent education.
At least 9 years of industry experience in RF circuit and subsystem design.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex RF designs using discrete components and RF modules, supported by analysis, simulation, prototyping, and measured verification.
Strong command of matching and filters, including impedance, Smith charts, series and shunt matching, lumped and distributed networks, transmission lines, reflections, VSWR, and tradeoffs among Q, network complexity, loss, and bandwidth.
Strong command of receiver design, including noise figure and cascaded noise analysis, SNR, noise power and density, decibel quantities, gain distribution, front-end and pre-detector filtering, nonlinear effects, IIP3, frequency conversion, images, mixing spurs, and phase noise.
Strong command of power amplifier design, including power, gain, and efficiency matching; matching structures; amplifier operating classes; conduction angle; load pull; bias; linearity; and thermal performance.
Knowledge of frequency and bandwidth design from UHF through X-band, including effects of wavelength, bandwidth, parasitics, coupling, propagation, obstacles, and reflections on circuit performance and link budgets.
Knowledge of modulation and signal processing, including real and complex baseband; amplitude, phase, frequency, and pulse modulation; pulse compression and correlation; and bandwidth, dynamic range, and timing tradeoffs and their implications for receiver and transmitter design.
Knowledge of simulation and measurement, including schematic capture, PCB layout review, parametric circuit analysis, 2.5D/3D electromagnetic simulation, RF test equipment, S-parameters and their limitations, de-embedding, phase-noise measurements, and correlation of simulation with test results.
Demonstrated ability to teach RF concepts, mentor engineers with differing experience levels, and develop the technical capabilities of an RF engineering staff.
Demonstrated engineering judgment in reliability, manufacturability, design margin, and sustained product performance.
Strong communication, collaboration, and technical leadership skills, and the ability and interest to grow into RF team management.

Nice To Haves

Postgraduate engineering degree in RF design.
Experience designing RF circuitry for aviation or other safety-critical products.
Experience designing RF integrated circuits using silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technologies.
Experience using IBIS models to evaluate digital interfaces and their effects on RF performance.
Experience leading engineering teams, developing technical training, or managing engineers.

Responsibilities

Teach, mentor, and develop RF engineers across RF design, analysis, simulation, and measurement disciplines.
Provide practical instruction, constructive design feedback, and challenging assignments that build technical judgment and independent problem-solving.
Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, and test teams; communicate technical risks, priorities, and decisions; and fulfill project commitments.
Develop leadership skills for broader responsibility, including potential management of RF engineering teams.
Lead the architecture, design, and verification of RF receivers, transmitters, power amplifiers, filters, matching networks, and frequency-conversion circuits.
Lead design reviews and document design rationale and verification evidence for certification, production, and long-term product maintenance.
Translate product requirements into circuit specifications, performance budgets, design approaches, and verification plans.
Guide technical decisions and resolve complex design problems.
Analyze and optimize small-signal and large-signal performance, including gain, noise, sensitivity, dynamic range, linearity, efficiency, phase noise, and spurious responses.
Apply circuit and electromagnetic simulation to guide schematic and PCB design, accounting for parasitics, coupling, component variation, temperature, and manufacturing constraints.
Establish rigorous measurement practices and correlate laboratory results with analytical and simulation predictions; identify root causes and guide corrective actions.
Select components and RF modules considering performance, design margin, reliability, manufacturability, and long-term availability.