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Salary: USD 104,000 - 155,000 / annual
Northwood Space is a modern space infrastructure company building a global network of phased-array ground stations for satellite communications. These systems enable real-time, reliable communication for national security, global connectivity, and disaster response missions. The company takes a vertically integrated approach, designing, building, and rapidly deploying scalable systems.
As a Senior RF & Antenna Systems Engineer, you will define and evaluate phased-array RF architectures for Northwood's satellite ground-station network. You will translate mission and link requirements into antenna, aperture, beamforming, RF front-end, calibration, and tracking requirements, and evaluate how those choices affect end-to-end communications performance.
This role sits at the intersection of phased arrays, RF systems, SATCOM links, and physical-layer communications. You will work closely with antenna, RF, DSP/communications, digital, mechanical, manufacturing, software, and operations teams to ensure the complete ground-station system achieves its required link performance.
Key responsibilities include:
- Define phased-array antenna and RF-system architectures for satellite communication ground stations
- Translate mission, coverage, link-availability, waveform, throughput, and regulatory requirements into technical specifications
- Develop and maintain end-to-end SATCOM link budgets incorporating measured aperture and RF-chain performance
- Analyze analog, hybrid, and digital beamforming approaches in collaboration with implementation teams
- Determine how antenna and RF impairments affect communications performance (EVM, BER/BLER, throughput, link availability)
- Analyze RF lineups and performance budgets for gain, noise figure, dynamic range, linearity, phase noise, and filtering
- Build Python, MATLAB, or similar models combining array behavior, measured RF performance, and modem-level metrics
- Lead cross-functional investigations of degraded system performance metrics
- Support regulatory submissions, spectrum coordination, partner reviews, system acceptance, and operational deployment
The ideal candidate has deep experience in phased-array or antenna systems and can reason beyond the aperture—connecting gain, scan loss, polarization, sidelobes, noise, linearity, phase noise, calibration, and propagation to communications performance metrics.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's or advanced degree in Electrical Engineering, Communications Engineering, Applied Physics, or related discipline
- 2+ years of experience with phased arrays, antenna systems, RF communication systems, or SATCOM terminals
- Experience with communication-link analysis, including EIRP, G/T, C/N0, Eb/N0, link margin, atmospheric loss, and interference
- Understanding of digital communications sufficient to relate RF performance to modulation-dependent EVM, acquisition, BER, throughput, and spectral performance
- Experience defining or evaluating RF lineups, including noise figure, gain, linearity, dynamic range, phase noise, filtering, and isolation
- Hands-on experience with RF measurements and integrated system debugging using vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, noise sources, and vector signal analyzers
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Familiarity with SATCOM waveforms and standards such as DVB-S2/S2X, CCSDS, or equivalent modem architectures
- Experience analyzing modulation-dependent EVM, BER/BLER, adjacent-channel leakage, spectral regrowth, amplifier backoff, and link degradation
- Experience with SDR-integrated RF systems or collaboration with FPGA, DSP, modem, and embedded-software teams
- Experience with HFSS, CST, or comparable full-wave electromagnetic tools
- Familiarity with radar, sensing, 5G NR, 802.11ad/ay, MIMO, multi-beam systems, or electronic-warfare systems
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
- Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible to obtain required ITAR authorizations from the U.S. Department of State
