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Salary: USD 110,000 - 151,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is a defense technology company founded in 2022 and backed by $1 billion in funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company develops multi-product defense solutions powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), serving warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams.
As a Senior Communications Systems Engineer, you will own the connectivity backbone of CHAOS's fielded systems, spanning 5G/cellular, SATCOM (Starlink and other LEO/MEO/GEO constellations), point-to-point wireless, and tactical mesh radios. You will bring rigorous systems engineering discipline to the communications domain, ensuring every connectivity solution is selected, qualified, validated, and ready for field deployment.
Key Responsibilities:
Systems Engineering: Translate mission, customer, and business needs into verifiable, traceable system and subsystem requirements for connectivity. Develop and maintain connectivity architectures, interfaces, design descriptions, and ICDs across cellular/5G, SATCOM, point-to-point wireless, and tactical mesh networks. Perform design analysis and verification including RF link budgets, key performance parameters (EIRP, G/T, C/N₀, Eb/N₀, throughput), antenna placement and pointing, handover behavior, and regulatory compliance. Lead trade studies weighing performance, size/weight/power, cost, availability, and compliance, including forward-looking needs such as non-line-of-sight links, elevated relays, and GPS-denied synchronization.
Hardware Selection & Qualification: Evaluate, select, and qualify communications hardware (cell modems, SATCOM terminals, P2P dishes, mesh radios) for field robustness and regional compatibility. Verify RF bands, regulatory suitability, and export/AT compliance before purchase or baseline integration. Manage regional variants in the product BOM. Collaborate with suppliers, satellite operators, and service providers to develop and integrate connectivity solutions.
Integration & Test: Integrate comms equipment into factory test plans with clear pass/fail criteria. Establish pre-ship verification on representative system hardware with in-country SIMs and bands. Support system integration, troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis from lab through field deployment. Drive corrective actions into the baseline and participate in technical reviews.
Deployment & Field Support: Keep CHAOS ahead of the pace of commercial and tactical communications innovation by continuously scanning the landscape for emerging technologies—new radios, waveforms, multi-orbit SATCOM constellations, and software-defined networking approaches—and driving the most promising into the product baseline. Support field deployments and provide technical guidance to customers.
This is a full-time, onsite role based in El Segundo, CA.
Requirements:
- 8+ years of experience in communications systems engineering, RF systems design, or related domain
- Deep expertise in one or more of: cellular/5G, SATCOM (LEO/MEO/GEO), point-to-point wireless, or tactical mesh radio systems
- Proficiency in RF analysis tools (link budgets, antenna modeling, propagation simulation)
- Experience with systems engineering practices: requirements traceability, architecture definition, interface control documents (ICDs), and verification planning
- Familiarity with hardware selection, qualification, and supply chain management for communications equipment
- Experience in rapid-iteration hardware production environments
- Experience supporting international deployments of communications equipment, including regional regulatory and spectrum considerations
- Active or eligible U.S. security clearance
