Job Description

RF/MICROWAVE STAFF APPLICATIONS ENGINEER – JOB DESCRIPTION

JOB SUMMARY
As an RF/Microwave Staff Applications Engineer, you will join a highly technical and collaborative team supporting engineers designing the next generation of advanced microwave systems. Your core responsibility will be to help customers successfully integrate our products by providing architectural guidance, performing block diagram analysis, and developing subsystem-level reference designs.

You will work closely with customers to understand their design goals and recommend optimal component-level solutions using simulation tools, bench measurements, and your own systems-level insight. You'll also create and present technical reports, application notes, and other customer-facing collateral to support design-in efforts and expand our technical thought leadership.

Beyond direct customer support, you will help lead internal efforts to maintain and enhance the accuracy, accessibility, and strategic messaging of our product documentation and online tools.

This role is ideal for an RF/microwave system or subsystem designer—especially one with prior hands-on experience using components such as mixers, amplifiers, switches, baluns, or filters—who is now seeking a customer-facing, commercially-oriented engineering position. You will report to the VP of Applications Engineering and work closely with our engineering, sales, and marketing teams.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Analyze system block diagrams—including receivers, tuners, synthesizers, RF front ends, and frequency converters—to recommend complete component solutions that align with customer performance goals.

• Design and document reference subsystems for common application areas such as electronic warfare, radar, test and measurement, satellite communications, and high-performance RF links.

• Simulate RF subsystems using commercial software (e.g., Keysight ADS, Microwave Office, HFSS), and assist customers in developing and troubleshooting their own simulations. Maintain and distribute accurate simulation models and libraries for components.

• Collaborate with product and reliability engineering teams to define, validate, and communicate product performance data, reliability thresholds, and production test limits.

• Deliver technical training to internal teams—including sales, junior engineers, and marketing—to ensure a consistent understanding of application best practices and product capabilities.

• Provide feedback to Sales, Marketing, and Design teams to inform the product roadmap, drawing on insights from customer use cases and emerging industry needs.

• Engage with customers through virtual meetings, on-site visits, and live demonstrations to propose and validate subsystem-level design solutions.

• Author and publish high-quality whitepapers, application notes, and technical briefs that illustrate the value and use of our products in real-world systems.

• Execute and interpret advanced RF/microwave measurements, including S-parameters, conversion loss, noise figure and temperature, gain compression, harmonic and intermodulation distortion, spurious generation, and transient response.

• Support customer inquiries by replicating measurement setups and troubleshooting complex system-level issues such as spurious signals, linearity, noise performance, and compression behavior.

• Manage technical priorities and report regularly to the VP of Applications Engineering on status, roadblocks, and opportunities.

• Actively promote an ethical, collaborative, and customer-focused engineering culture.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related field, with 5–8 years of experience working directly with RF/microwave products.

• Proven experience designing RF/microwave subsystems—such as up/downconverters, switched filter banks, or front-end modules—for aerospace, defense, or test and measurement applications.

• Proficiency with system-level simulation tools such as Keysight SystemVue, Genesys, VSS, ADS, Microwave Office, or similar platforms.

• Deep familiarity with component-level design using mixers, amplifiers, switches, filters, couplers, and other RF/microwave building blocks.

• Strong interest in transitioning into or growing within a customer-facing, commercially-oriented applications role, with a focus on winning design-ins and solving real-world system challenges.

• Hands-on experience operating RF and microwave test equipment including vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters, oscilloscopes, and other standard lab instruments.

• Experience in microelectronics prototyping, including surface mount assembly and/or working with bare die components, is preferred.

• Familiarity with mechanical drafting tools, with AutoCAD experience considered a plus.

• Demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and effectively—both verbally and in writing—with internal teams and external customers.

• Ability to collaborate as a team player in a cross-functional environment that includes engineering, sales, and marketing.

• Experience developing internal tools (e.g., software or script-based utilities for data management or simulation) is a plus.

• A strong commitment to hands-on engineering and a proactive, ethics-driven team mentality.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear.

• The employee is frequently required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms.

• The employee is occasionally required to sit, climb, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl.

• The employee must frequently lift and move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and move objects up to 25 pounds.

• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.

• Sedentary work that primarily involves sitting/standing.

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