Director, RF Electrical Engineering, Herndon

HawkEye 360 is seeking a Director, RF Electrical Engineering to lead our team of RF and Electrical Engineers. The Space Team’s mission is to design, build, and test small commercial satellites that provide revolutionary RF geospatial analytics. You will provide technical and strategic leadership for the end-to-end electrical design of our spacecraft buses and RF payloads, with particular emphasis on RF front ends, integrating Software Defined Radios (SDRs),, and antenna systems. As a technically hands-on director, you'll define RF test strategies, ensure rigorous performance verification, and guide your team through complex RF design challenges. You will drive operational excellence across the department—setting technical priorities, establishing best practices for RF testing, overseeing contract manufacturers, mentoring engineers, and ensuring seamless integration across electrical, mechanical, software, payload, and systems engineering teams. We're looking for a deeply technical, solutions-oriented leader with extensive hands-on RF and Electrical experience, strong people management skills, and a passion for advancing space-based RF technology. As the Director, RF Electrical Engineering , your main responsibilities will be: RF Technical Leadership: Provide technical direction for RF Front End (RFFE) and Software Defined Radio (SDR) Hardware architectures, ensuring designs meet mission performance requirements. Define RF performance test strategies and scope test campaigns to verify critical specifications including sensitivity, Noise Figure, Spur-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR), and signal qualityEstablish RF testing best practices and ensure the team properly characterizes RFFE and SDR performance through conducted/radiated measurements, spectrum analysis, and anechoic chamber testing. Review and approve RF link budgets, interference analyses, trade studies, and design decisions at PDR/CDRmilestones. Stay hands-on with complex RF problems—troubleshooting performance issues, guiding design optimization, and validating test approaches. Drive EMI/EMC compliance strategies and mitigation techniques for flight hardware. Electrical Engineering Leadership: Oversee the design of digital,analog, and power electronics for satellite flight hardware, including review and approval of schematics, block diagrams, PCB layouts, and Design for Manufacturing (DFM). Work closely with PCB Contract Manufacturers (CMs) to ensure quality control, address technical issues, and ensure timely delivery of flight hardware. Oversee first article hardware unit testing programs, including test inventory management, reception inspection, burn-in testing, thermal validation, and hardware checkouts. Support spacecraft integration and testing efforts, including the design and deployment of Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE), flatsats for functional testing, and satellite flight hardware validation. Team Leadership&Operations: Lead, mentor, and grow a multi-disciplinary team of RF and Electrical Engineers, fostering technical excellence and professional development. Manage resource allocation, project priorities and schedules across multiple satellite programs. Set clear technical standards and drive continuous improvement of design practices, test methodologies, and documentation. Collaborate cross-functionally with Systems, Mechanical, Software, and Test teams to ensure mission requirements are met and technical risks are managed. Your skills and qualifications: Essential education and experience: Bachelor's degree in RF/Electrical Engineering or related field or equivalent experience 10 years of hands-on experience in RF and electrical engineering, with deep expertise in software-defined radios, RF front ends, and receiver architectures. Proven ability to define and scope RF performance test campaigns and establish testing best practices using lab equipment such as Spectrum Analyzers, Network Analyzers, Signal Generators, Noise Figure Analyzers, and anechoic chambers. 3 years of engineering management or technical leadership experience, including managing priorities, resources, and team development. Strong technical depth in RF fundamentals (impedance matching, S-parameters, noise figure, linearity, link budgets, etc.) with the ability to guide engineers through complex problems. Deep understanding of power electronics, high-speed digital design, and PCB design (Altium or similar)with particular attention to high-speed RF layout considerations. Hands-on flight hardware experience (satellite integration, RF lab testing, prototyping, troubleshooting).Excellent communication and collaboration skills—able to translate complex technical concepts for cross-functional stakeholders and represent the team in high-level discussions. Experience handling ESD-sensitive components and operating in cleanroom environments. Desirable: ​​​​​​ Experience working in the smallsat or space industrywith RF payloads or communication systems. Experience with RF simulation tools (ADS, CST, HFSS, or similar) and RF modeling. Proficiency with Python, MATLAB, C++, or other coding languages for RF analysis and test automation. Experience with version control (git) and modern engineering workflows. Familiarity with CAD (NX, SolidWorks, etc.) to support electro-mechanical integration. Experience managing complex schedules and workflows using JIRA, Confluence, or similar project management tools. Base Salary Range: $155,000 - $200,000 annually HawkEye 360 offers a compensation package that includes a competitive base salary plus annual performance bonus and benefits. We consider many factors when determining salary offers, such as candidate's work experience, education, training&skills, as well as market and business considerations. We are also open to considering candidates with experience and qualifications at a different level than required in a job posting, which may affect the compensation package offered. Company Overview: HawkEye 360 is equipping defense, intelligence, and national security leaders with mission-critical signals intelligence to enable faster, better decision making. By detecting, geolocating, and characterizing radio frequency emissions worldwide, HawkEye 360 delivers trusted domain awareness and early warning indicators to the US Government and allied partners. Our space-based collection, proprietary signal processing, and AI-powered analytics transform knowledge of RF spectrum into a strategic advantage. Proven by operational mission success, HawkEye 360 is redefining how signals intelligence strengthens national and global security. HawkEye 360 is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. To all recruitment agencies: HawkEye 360 does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, HawkEye 360 employees or any other organization location. HawkEye 360 is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.