RF / Microwave Engineer

About the Company

This stealth, ground-floor hard-tech startup is building advanced phased-array systems for communications and radar applications.

Most RF engineers spend their careers owning one layer of a system, then handing it across an organizational boundary and hoping the interfaces hold. This team is building differently. RFIC, antenna, digital, DSP, packaging, embedded software, characterization, and test are being developed together, in-house, by one tightly integrated group.

The result is an unusually high-feedback engineering environment. You can trace a decision from first-principles architecture through a circuit, module, package, array, calibration stack, and deployed system. When something fails, the team can find the real answer quickly because the people who designed every layer are in the same room.

The founding group brings more than three decades of SpaceX experience across Starlink RF silicon, phased-array antennas, direct-to-cell systems, mmWave hardware, embedded systems, calibration, test, and scaled production. They have already built technology that moved from early concepts to millions of deployed units. Now they are assembling the kind of RF organization they always wanted to build.

This is a direct-hire position for a client of AdAstra Talent Advisors. The company is confidential, and additional details will be shared during an initial conversation.

The company is looking for an RF / Microwave Engineer who can move comfortably between equations, simulation, layout, hardware, and the lab.

This is not a role for someone who wants to design one predictable block, send it downstream, and wait for a polished test report. You will work across the full technical lifecycle, from architecture and link budgets through RF and microwave circuit design, packaging, characterization, debugging, and rapid iteration.

You may be deriving a system trade in the morning, reviewing a package or substrate in the afternoon, then spending the evening at a VNA proving which physical assumption was wrong. The best person for this role finds that energizing.

The team cares deeply about theoretical strength, not because they want academic exercises, but because the work will repeatedly move into new frequencies, materials, packages, and architectures where memorized recipes stop working. They want someone who can reason from fundamentals, build the fastest useful model, get into the lab, and make reality answer the question.

• • Develop RF system architectures, link budgets, and performance allocations for phased-array communications and radar systems

  • Build system-level models spanning gain, phase, linearity, noise, power, calibration, coexistence, and thermal constraints

  • Design and develop RF and microwave circuits, MMICs, passive structures, printed components, matching networks, substrates, chip breakouts, packages, modules, and systems-in-package

  • Perform electromagnetic and circuit simulation and translate those models into hardware that can be built and measured

  • Own hands-on bring-up, characterization, debugging, and experimental validation using high-frequency laboratory equipment

  • Correlate simulation, bench data, and system-level performance, then update the design based on what the hardware reveals

  • Work directly with RFIC, antenna, digital, DSP, mechanical, thermal, embedded, and PCB-layout engineers to resolve whole-system tradeoffs

  • Create test methods, fixtures, automation, and data-analysis workflows that make future iterations faster

  • Help define the design standards, laboratory culture, and technical roadmap of a company still early enough for your judgment to matter everywhere

• • Strong foundation in RF and microwave engineering, electromagnetics, transmission lines, S-parameters, impedance matching, stability, gain, linearity, noise, and power

  • Experience designing RF or microwave hardware and taking it through bring-up, measurement, debugging, and iteration

  • Ability to reason from first principles when requirements are incomplete or prior solutions do not transfer cleanly

  • Hands-on fluency with equipment such as vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, oscilloscopes, power meters, probes, fixtures, and calibration standards

  • Experience interpreting raw measurement data rather than relying only on summarized reports

  • Comfort working across circuit, module, package, substrate, PCB, and system boundaries

  • Experience with RF simulation and design tools such as ADS, AWR, HFSS, CST, Sonnet, MATLAB, Python, or comparable platforms

  • Ability to move quickly in ambiguity, identify the highest-risk assumption, and design the fastest useful experiment

  • Strong communication skills and the humility to work through difficult cross-functional tradeoffs without treating adjacent disciplines as blockers

  • A genuine desire to remain hands-on, regardless of seniority

• • Phased-array systems, beamforming, radar, satellite communications, direct-to-device, or high-throughput wireless systems

  • mmWave circuit or module design

  • RFIC integration, chip-to-package transitions, wirebond or flip-chip structures, high-frequency substrates, interposers, or systems-in-package

  • Array calibration, gain and phase control, link-budget closure, or RF coexistence

  • Automated characterization, test scripting, statistical analysis, or production-oriented test development

  • Hardware that has moved from prototype into qualification, production, or scaled deployment

The Culture

The company has a simple view of seniority: principal engineers do not graduate out of the lab. They solve harder problems faster, exercise better judgment, and help the entire team improve, but they still touch the hardware.

This team is likely to frustrate someone who needs perfectly frozen requirements, clean organizational boundaries, or a large support structure before beginning. It will be deeply energizing for someone who likes owning the whole problem, learning quickly, and watching a design become a real system without disappearing into layers of process.

WHY YOU WILL LOVE WORKING HERE

BUILD THE WHOLE THING

You will not own a block that vanishes into another organization. You will see how your work changes the architecture, array, calibration, packaging, test strategy, and final system.

WORK WITH A RARE FOUNDER BENCH

The founding team has already built and scaled some of the most technically demanding RF and phased-array systems in the world. You will be surrounded by people who understand both the equations and the brutal physical details of making hardware work at scale.

SHAPE THE ENGINEERING CULTURE

The company is early enough that your technical habits, design methods, laboratory standards, and judgment will become part of how the organization operates for years.

MEANINGFUL GROUND-FLOOR OWNERSHIP

The founders are personally all-in and currently taking no salary. They are open to flexible compensation structures that allow exceptional candidates to choose a different balance between cash and equity.

DO WORK THAT TRAVELS

The underlying technology can matter across communications, radar, sensing, space, defense, and other industries where high-performance phased arrays are becoming essential infrastructure.

Logistical Requirements

• • Full-time, onsite position in Seattle, Washington

  • No remote or hybrid option

  • This work may involve export-controlled technology. Candidates must be eligible to work on applicable U.S. export-controlled programs

ITAR Requirement

• To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.15), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.  

COMPENSATION

Equal Opportunity

About AdAstra

AdAstra Talent Advisors is a headhunting and talent advising firm focused on the Climate, Space, and Defense sectors of Hard Tech. We specialize in pairing highly technical and executive talent with some of the world’s leading Hard Tech startups.

At AdAstra, we catalyze the innovations that future generations depend on by placing the right people in the right seats. Our dedicated work enables inconceivable technology from Earth, to the stars. And it’s all because of trailblazing talent like you - those driven to do what’s never been done before. 

We care about long term relationships with both candidates and companies. Even if the role we initially discuss isn’t a perfect fit, it’s likely we’ll have something relevant to share with you in the future. 

Join us on our journey by following along via LinkedIn!

CEO, Seyka Mejeur  |  LinkedIn profile

CTO / COO, Brian Mejeur  |  LinkedIn profile

AdAstra Talent Advisors  |  LinkedIn profile

AdAstra Website