RF Modem Engineer (35384)

RF Module Technical Leadership

• Serve as the technical lead for the design, integration, and lifecycle management of advanced RF modules supporting broadband wireless, satellite, or high-speed communications systems.
• Define RF architectures and establish performance budgets, including gain, noise figure, linearity, phase noise, dynamic range, and spurious emissions.
• Ensure RF subsystem performance meets specifications across process, voltage, temperature, aging, and environmental operating conditions.
• Perform system-level trade studies and evaluate the impact of changing technical requirements, component selections, and operating environments.

RF Design Review & Engineering Oversight

• Review and approve RF schematics, PCB layouts, and design documentation developed by internal engineering teams and external design partners.
• Ensure best practices are followed for:
• RF grounding and isolation
• Signal integrity and high-speed layout
• EMI/EMC mitigation
• Thermal management
• Mixed-signal design and partitioning
• Participate in design reviews, technical readiness assessments, and product milestone reviews while identifying technical risks and recommending mitigation strategies.

Manufacturing & Product Industrialization

• Act as the primary engineering interface with contract manufacturers, fabrication partners, assembly houses, and component suppliers.
• Lead Design for Manufacturability (DFM), Design for Testability (DFT), and Design for Serviceability (DFS) reviews to maximize production yield, reliability, and long-term manufacturability.
• Develop and maintain:
• Manufacturing test strategies
• Acceptance and qualification criteria
• Golden reference units
• Correlation and calibration plans
• Support engineering validation, design verification, production validation, and manufacturing ramp-up activities.
• Analyze manufacturing data, yield trends, and field returns to identify root causes and implement corrective actions.
• Manage Engineering Change Requests (ECRs) and Engineering Change Orders (ECOs), ensuring full product lifecycle traceability.

RF Test, Validation & Verification

• Develop and maintain RF, functional, and system-level test procedures.
• Support laboratory validation and production testing, including measurements such as:
• Error Vector Magnitude (EVM)
• Modulation Error Ratio (MER)
• Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio (ACLR)
• Phase Noise
• Harmonics and Spurious Emissions
• Frequency response and waveform compliance
• Partner with systems, hardware, and test engineering teams to ensure complete requirements verification and traceability.
• Support environmental qualification, thermal characterization, vibration testing, and long-term reliability validation for high-performance communications products.

Embedded Systems & Firmware Integration

• Collaborate with embedded software and firmware teams responsible for configuring, controlling, and monitoring RF hardware.
• Review and support embedded interfaces including SPI, I²C, UART, GPIO, and other hardware communication protocols.
• Support board bring-up, hardware calibration, compensation algorithms, telemetry, diagnostics, and health monitoring functions.
• Ensure embedded control software supports both manufacturing test environments and deployed field operations.

Product Lifecycle & Sustaining Engineering

• Provide technical leadership throughout the entire product lifecycle, from concept development through production and sustaining engineering.
• Investigate customer issues, manufacturing defects, and field failures, implementing corrective and preventive actions where required.
• Evaluate component obsolescence risks and identify suitable replacement components while maintaining product performance and regulatory compliance.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams including systems engineering, hardware, firmware, software, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and customer support to deliver reliable, high-performance RF products on schedule.

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