Principal RF Electronics Engineer

About the role

DroneShield is seeking a Principal RF Electronics Engineer with relevant experience to join the team in Sydney, Australia.

The position will report to the Electronics Team lead within product development.

The Product Development Team at Droneshield is focused on providing fully operational and qualified modular devices to enable new product development of high-end RF based sensors and effectors. These modules are re-used across various product configurations including man-portable, vehicle mounted and fixed site. Key technical challenges for the electronics aspect of these modules include the design of complex wide-band RF circuitry, high speed digital interface and high-power radio frequency output. DroneShield designs and builds the full signal chain from signal generation to antenna.

Expectations of this role in the RF Electronics Team will be focussed on the architecture of the system, working with other teams to ensure the next generation product remain class leading. This will include proposal next generation electronics architecture, guiding engineers on SCH/PCB design implementation, reviewing validation test plan development, troubleshooting existing design problems and hardware issue root-case analysis and resolution.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations  

• Lead the team on the RF Electronic Architecture and work on the core of Droneshields technology for accuracy, performance stability and maintenance.
• Self-management of workload, methods and workflow to meet key business objectives.
• Schematic and PCB design using Altium, including contribution to component database and document templates.
• Expert knowledge with test equipment for validation of high-speed digital and RF interfaces, including training younger engineers for correct usage.
• Manufacturing test specification design and support for production setup & debugging.
• Hardware design validation planning and execution on both a modular and system level.
• Employing and developing sound industry practices for documentation and QC.
• Leading manufacturing test specification design and support for production setup & debugging.
• Mentoring and training of junior engineers

Qualifications, Experience and Skills  

• Degree in Electronics Engineering, similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum of 15 years' experience in RF hardware design, test and production support.
• Seasoned experience using benchtop test equipment such as VNA's, spectrum analyser and signal generators.
• Experience in mentoring less experienced engineers.
• Simulation experience using Microwave Office, ADS or similar.
• Solid knowledge of link budget estimation and communications theory
• Expert knowledge for receiver sensitivity principles such as cascaded noise figure, dynamic range and noise floor degradation
• Significant experience in SCH and PCB design using Altium.
• Substantial RF hardware design theory and experience. Isolation, matching networks, filter specifications.
• Experience in design of high-power RF amplifiers and linearization techniques
• Experience in hardware design principles for battery power device applications.
• Theoretical and practical understanding of PCB layout techniques for high-speed digital and RF circuitry.
• Familiarity of applicable global and local radio standards for intentional radiators.
• Significant experience and working knowledge of Antennas.

Desirable experiences and skills 

• Leading projects or initiatives within a company environment
• Hardware design with integrated antennas.
• RF filter specification and selection. Significant Design experience is expected.
• RF power amplifier design experience combined with implementing heat management principles.
• Experience architecting and developing transmitter RF front-end design up to 12 GHz and 100 W.
• Experience architecting and developing receiver RF front-end design up to 10 GHz including filter, diplexer, splitters, and LNA.
• Component specification for RF components such as power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, solid-state switches, power dividers/combiners, couplers
• Software Defined Radio design experience is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of mainstream RF modulation techniques.
• Knowledge and experience working with Multi-carrier combining.
• Significant Antenna design would be an advantage.

Note for recruitment agencies: we do not accept floated candidates from external recruiters unless they were instructed to do so.