RF Firmware Engineer

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Mission : Build next generation counter-UAV defense systems that will be used to defend human lives, critical infrastructure, and high value assets for the United States and its allies.
• Firmware development : Write high-performance, bare-metal C/C++ firmware for resource constrained microcontrollers powering the RF front-end boards in Mach’s radar products.
• Hardware co-design : Work with hardware engineers on component selection, board bring-up, and optimal hardware-software trade-offs (power, cost, form factor).
• Firmware bring-up : Bring-up low level C/C++ bare-meta code from scratch, including peripherals/drivers (I2C, SPI, CAN, GPIO) to configure RF/microwave ICs (such as DDS, PPL, LNA, PA, filters, switches, etc) and…
• RF performance verification: Devise lab tests using RF/microwave test equipment to verify the functionality of the firmware and performance of the RF front-end boards.
• RF calibration : Analyze amplitude, phase, and performance metrics to develop calibration techniques and implement calibration techniques in firmware to optimize the performance of the RF front-end boards.
• Automation/Scripting : Write scripts (Python) to automate factory RF/microwave calibration processes to speed up calibration and ensure a high calibration accuracy.
• Testing and reliability : Own firmware quality, reliability and performance by proactively identifying, documenting/tracking and fixing issues to maintain high reliability of Mach’s radar systems.

Job requirements

• Education : Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Software Engineer or a related field.
• Experience : 5+ years of experience developing embedded firmware for RF/microwave front-ends, for products such as radar/RF seekers or wireless radio (4G/5G/BLE/Wifi) products.
• Languages : Proficiency in bare-metal C/C++ with proven ability to write clean, well-tested, and highly efficient code in memory constrained environments.
• MCU bring-up : Demonstrated experience bringing up new microcontrollers and processors from scratch, including MCU clock/PLL configuration, low-level peripheral bring-up (I2C, SPI, CAN, GPIO) on development kits and…
• RF/Microwave knowledge : Deep familiarity with RF/microwave transmitter and receiver architectures and components (DDS, PLL, LNA, PA, mixers, filters, and down-conversion stages) and calibration techniques.
• Test equipment : Hands-on experience using lab test equipment (oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, logic/protocol analyzers) to debug and measure the performance of RF front-end hardware.
• Automation/scripting : Proficiency in Python or other scripting language to automate the collection of RF/microwave measurements and calibration data.
• Protocols : Deep understanding of standard communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN and Ethernet) used to control RF/microwave ICs and interface with other subsystems.