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Manager, RF Hardware Engineering

At ICEYE, we design, build and operate the largest fleet of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites in the world. Using advanced technology, our constellation collects topographical data about any location on Earth, day or night, through any weather conditions.

Headquartered in Southern California, our customers are society’s heroes – intelligence professionals, warfighters, first responders, and scientific researchers. As a trusted mission partner, the United States and its allies depend on us for critical information when it matters most.

Role Description

ICEYE US is developing next-generation spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payloads and full space vehicles, and is seeking an RF Hardware Manager to lead the engineering team responsible for payload RF hardware, radar systems, and communications hardware design. Sitting within the Space Systems engineering team, this role owns the RF hardware architecture across SAR payload, radar subsystems, and vehicle-level communications — ensuring that antenna arrays, high-speed digitizers, RF front ends, and data links meet mission performance requirements across the full program lifecycle.

The manager will absorb and institutionalize relevant historical knowledge of ICEYE's SAR payload designs and RF architecture, guiding the translation of that knowledge into ICEYE US products, while simultaneously building the RF hardware foundation to support full space vehicle development. They will own the concept of operations (CONOPS) to inform RF design decisions across all engineering domains, serve as the primary RF technical authority at all program lifecycle reviews, and drive the team toward a verified, integrated flight article ready for environmental test and launch.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and grow a team of RF hardware, radar, and communications hardware engineers; own hiring, onboarding, performance development, and technical career growth for direct reports.\

Own RF subsystem program execution: work breakdown, scheduling, resource loading, risk tracking, and status reporting against program milestones (SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, FRR).

Set and enforce RF hardware engineering standards, processes, and operating framework governing how RF systems, radar hardware, and communications hardware are designed, analyzed, tested, and verified across the program lifecycle — including RF analysis standards, test automation frameworks, documentation formats, and RF verification readiness criteria.

Serve as the RF hardware technical authority and primary cross-functional counterpart to systems engineering, mechanical, thermal, avionics, embedded software, firmware, and program management stakeholders.

Own the RF hardware architecture for SAR payloads and space vehicles, including transmit/receive chains, high-speed digitizers, low-noise RF circuits, power amplifiers, and RF front-end subsystems.

Direct detailed RF hardware analysis for antennas and phased antenna arrays, including gain, beam pattern, polarization, scan performance, and mutual coupling.

Guide the team in hardware/software and hardware/firmware co-design with embedded software and FPGA firmware engineers on high-speed digital interfaces, timing architectures, and data acquisition chains.

Own vehicle-level and payload-level communications hardware architecture — RF uplink/downlink, inter-subsystem RF links, and ground interface RF definitions — ensuring end-to-end link performance meets mission ConOps and data rate requirements.

Oversee RF subsystem requirements development and engineering requirements derivation to meet system-level mission performance goals.

Required Qualifications

8+ years of experience in RF hardware engineering, including spacecraft or payload RF system design through the full design lifecycle.

2+ years of direct engineering management or technical lead experience, including tasking, mentorship, and performance ownership for a multi-discipline RF or hardware engineering team.