Multifunction EW RF Engineer

About The Role

As an extension of our core products in Command Control and Communications (C3) we are diving deeper into the EW space to make the systems and platforms we integrate more survivable. We are developing an Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) capability that will provide broad spectrum awareness that can aid national government off-the-shelf assets in the EMS. For communication this will provide a real time database of inference and unoccupied spectrum to aid maneuver. For Electromagnetic Warfare (EW) this will in parallel provide a tip and queue interface to enable current EW and Signals Intelligence systems to more rapidly identify signals of interest driving toward an open plug-and-play approach with national government off-the-shelf assets.

We are seeking an RF Systems Engineer to design integrate and field RF sensing capabilities that provide wideband spectrum awareness agility and direction finding aboard autonomous vehicles. This role will focus on bringing practical RF expertise to a small cross-functional team building real systems for operational use.

You will own RF engineering end-to-end from antenna concepts to RF front-end design for our EMSO products. This will not be limited to bespoke designs aimed solely at Forterras systems but work more broadly to design RF systems that can host partner capabilities and support rapid integration of of a plurality of sensor effectors and communication systems. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who thrives in ambiguous problem spaces and can move quickly from concept to over-the-air performance.

What Youll Do

• Design integrate and test RF front end design & subsystems supporting EMSO and EW sensing including antennas RF front-end components and software-defined radios (SDRs).
• Develop RF architectures that enable wideband spectrum awareness direction finding and spectrum agility across VHF UHF and lower SHF bands.
• Work with external vendors and partners to specify evaluate and validate custom RF components or subsystems when required to ensure Forterras systems can support a wide array for tasks
• Rapidly prototype RF systems using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or government off-the-shelf (GOTS) components balancing speed performance and system maturity.
• Perform RF field testing system demonstrations experimentation and validation.
• Collaborate with electrical and mechanical engineers to integrate RF hardware into autonomous vehicle platforms considering antenna placement grounding shielding and enclosure considerations.
• Diagnose and resolve RF performance issues including interference data rate/bandwidth limitations and RF chain degradation in real-world environments.

What Were Looking For:

• Mission-First Mindset - We put the needs of the mission and our customers first and understand that the US and its allies have no preordained right to victory in any future conflict.
• Ownership Mentality - Were looking for owners; those who have a natural bias to assume responsibility a healthy dose of skepticism and contribute to a culture of performance.
• Technical Aptitude and Intellectual Curiosity - We are first and foremost a technology company working at the leading edge of capabilities like machine learning autonomy distributed networking and multi-modal sensor fusion.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7 years of experience designing building and testing RF or wireless systems from concept through deployment.
• Strong understanding of RF fundamentals including antenna theory array processing RF propagation impedance matching filtering and low-noise amplification.
• Experience analyzing RF system performance using link budgets VSWR noise figure and dynamic range.
• Practical experience across a broad range of frequencies from VHF and UHF through lower SHF.
• Ability to work cross-functionally and communicate RF concepts clearly to non-RF engineers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with EMSO EW or SIGINT systems and spectrum-awareness workflows.
• Experience with antenna arrays phased arrays beamforming or RF direction-finding techniques.
• Knowledge of digital signal processing techniques for RF systems.
• Programming experience (Python MATLAB C/C) for RF test automation and data analysis.
• Experience integrating RF systems onto platforms.
• Prior experience working in fast-paced small-team or field-focused development environments
  
  

Education & Experience

• Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
  
  

US Salary Range
$205000$255000

The salary range for this role is an estimate and is based on a wide variety of compensation factors. The salary offered to candidates will vary based on a variety of factors including (but not limited to) relevant work experience education specialized training critical expertise training and more. Equity in Forterra is included in most of our full-time high-demand roles and is therefore considered part of Forterras overall compensation addition to base salary and equity Forterra offers competitive benefits for full-time employees including:

• Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options including an HSA-eligible plan with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
• Basic Life/AD&D short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
• Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
• A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
• A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
• Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan including traditional Roth 401(k) and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.

Your recruiter will be able to share more information about our salary and benefits offering during the hiring process.

Forterra is an equal-opportunity employer providing and promoting equal employment opportunity in accordance with local state and federal laws. Forterrans are unique talented individuals who are united through a shared passion to deliver autonomous systems that enable national resilience and a robust supply chain. All qualified applications will receive equal consideration for employment.

Required Experience:

IC