Senior RF Hardware Engineer

About Cascade Space

Cascade Space is building ground-based physical infrastructure and software tools to support customer spacecraft exploring the moon and beyond. We recently raised a seed round and are excited to make our first RF engineering hire!

For our planned global network of ground stations, instead of building single large dishes, we are building arrays of dishes that are combined with a digital beamformer into one large aperture, comparable to a Deep Space Network 34 meter dish. Each array requires dozens of coherent downconverter and upconverter channels, RF-over-fiber, and extremely low noise front ends that make the beamforming possible.

Role description

We are looking for a teammate who is excited to be on the ground floor of a tiny startup, who wants to ship great product, and work on cool space stuff. You will have the opportunity to help build out the team, shape the cultural and engineering norms, help set product direction, and own a large part of our early success. The ideal candidate will be very competent working at a bench, hands on. We’re building toward the future of spaceflight and human expansion into the solar system; wouldn’t it be cool to help get that off the ground?

You will lead RF hardware development for the Cascade Array. In this role you will own the hardware design, schematics, layouts, production, and test. You will work alongside our software and systems engineers to determine what hardware needs to be built. You will do make-vs-buy analyses, and then manage the procurement of components that we buy while designing the ones that are best made in-house. We will buy components as needed to accelerate progress, however our bias is toward full vertical integration.

If you are an RF wizard who knows the Smith Chart inside and out, loves building highly sensitive receivers, has a practical hands-on approach to design, and thrives having full ownership of an entire system, this is the job for you!

This is a full-time position and it is expected to be in-office four days per week with one day flexible for in-office or remote work. Our office, located in San Francisco (Soma), is three blocks from BART, filled with natural light and has a lovely roof deck.

Responsibilities

In this role you will be responsible for designing, building, and testing the receiver and transmitter hardware for the Cascade Array. This includes:

• Multi-channel upconverters and downconverters for S, X, and Ka band
• Custom RF-over-fiber modules
• Extremely low noise (<10K) amplifiers for feeds
• Power amplifiers
• Oversee feed and reflector design

Additional responsibilities include:

• Contributing to the Cascade Designer development and testing
• Help maintain our SpaceLink open source library
• Supporting customers with system engineering
• System level testing and validation
• Operation support

Qualifications

• 3-20 years of experience in RF engineering
• Solid RF engineering fundamentals
  • S-Parameters
  • Smith Charts
  • Filter design
• Proficiency in converter design, spur analysis, high dynamic range design
• Experience in amplifier design (both low noise and power amplifiers)
• Experience with schematic capture and layout tools such as Altium
• Experience with RF tests and test equipment
• Experience in Python programming
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills

Bonus Points

• Experience in building modern, low-cost spacecraft
• Antenna design experience
• Experience with low phase noise synthesizer design

Compensation & Benefits

• $150k – $210k base salary + equity
• Unlimited PTO (minimum 15 days encouraged)
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance
• Lunch & dinner provided daily
• Competition winning coffee

US Person Requirement

The day to day duties of this role do not involve ITAR or EAR materials, however many of our potential customers have designs and information that are restricted. Therefore, this role may be filled only by “U.S. Persons.”

A “U.S. Person” is defined as a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident (green‑card holder), or an individual who has been granted asylum or refugee status. Candidates who cannot satisfy this requirement unfortunately cannot be considered for employment at Cascade Space at this time.