Senior RF Test Engineer

Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today, Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe— large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military. With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts.
Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization.Astranis has raised over $750 million from some of the world’s best investors, from Andreessen Horowitz to Blackrock and Fidelity, and employs a team of 450 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.

The payload team is responsible for the development of RF and mixed signal hardware. This includes but is not limited to: frequency converters, RF amplifiers, oscillators, software defined radios, and data converters. In this role you will work with hardware designers and other payload engineers to create test systems from the ground up to validate designs and qualify them for space environments. Test engineers will have the opportunity to work on systems from individual PCBs all the way up to integrated end-to-end payloads. Experienced candidates will have the opportunity to build a team and scale the test infrastructure of the payload team to increase volume and reduce test times.

• Develop test solutions for automated testing of RF and mixed signal hardware: frequency converters, RF amplifiers, oscillators, software defined radios, data converters, etc.
• Characterize and calibrate the performance of Astranis radio subsystems (gain, nonlinearity measurements such as P1dB and IP3, phase noise, frequency drift over temperature, emissions compliance, EVM, BER, etc)
• Develop and manage test plans, coordinating with hardware engineers to ensure testing validates design requirements
• Develop and utilize Python libraries for interfacing with test instruments, units under test, and results processing
• Validate and qualify hardware designs for space environments, interpreting results and providing feedback to the hardware designers
• Assist in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring additional teammates to our rapidly-growing team.

• Bachelor of Science degree in EE, CS (or equivalent background knowledge)
• 6+ years of relevant experience
• Experience with object oriented programming in Python (or other high-level scripting languages)
• Experience taking measurements on RF and mixed signal devices with standard test equipment (network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, etc)
• 2+ years of experience testing communications or RF systems
• Experience with test automation
• Experience designing PCBs using Altium or similar

• Strong grasp of digital communications concepts
• Experience with FPGAs or software defined radios (SDR)
• Familiarity with test and qualification of electronics for space