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Senior RF Engineer

Icarus· Engineering
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Los Angeles, CA$120k - $220kFull-timePosted 8mo ago

About the role

Senior RF Engineer role at Icarus, building and validating RF and communications systems for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft.

Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and fly RF and communications systems for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft
  • Own RF subsystems end to end: architecture, link budgets, component selection, integration, test, and flight validation
  • Design and integrate radios, antennas, RF front ends, and data links for LOS and BLOS operation
  • Drive RF performance through analysis, simulation, bench testing, and flight data
  • Lead EMI/EMC mitigation across avionics, power, and payload systems
  • Work closely with avionics, GNC, electrical, mechanical, and software teams to deliver robust flight communications
  • Support integration, production bring-up, and flight operations in the desert

Qualifications

  • 2+ years designing and deploying real RF systems for aerospace, defense, UAVs, or similarly demanding environments
  • Strong fundamentals in RF theory, electromagnetics, and communications systems
  • Experience with link budgets, antenna design or selection, RF propagation, and system-level trade studies
  • Hands-on experience with RF test equipment (spectrum analyzers, VNAs, signal generators, power meters)
  • Experience debugging RF systems in the field, not just in simulation
  • Comfort working from first principles and validating performance through test and flight data
  • Ability to move fast, own outcomes, and operate with minimal supervision

Skills

Required:RF theoryLink budgetsRF test equipment

Benefits

  • Meaningful equity
  • Top market salary and bonuses
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance
  • Factory in El Segundo
  • Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
  • Small team, massive responsibility
  • High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
  • Dream desk setup
  • Daily lunch
  • Unlimited celsius
Last updated Sep 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Icarus

Stratospheric birds for defense

Always-on intelligence and connectivity for Defense. Icarus builds autonomous, solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, above the clouds harnessing the power of the Sun, but never too close. Acting as a Cell Tower in the Sky, it’s the U-2 spy plane reborn in 2025, except each costs $100K and is built by the thousands. The future of warfare is persistent swarms in the Stratosphere.

hardwareswarm-roboticsaerospace
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