Senior Microwave Antenna Engineer

Senior Microwave Antenna Engineer

Durham, North Carolina | On-site | Full-time

EVONA is partnering with an early-stage space technology company developing a new generation of high-performance Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.

We are looking for a Senior Microwave Antenna Engineer to take significant technical ownership of an advanced electronically steerable X-band antenna system, from electromagnetic design and simulation through PCB implementation, prototyping, integration and test.

This is a highly hands-on role for an engineer who wants to design and build real flight hardware, rather than own one narrow piece of a larger programme.

What you'll be doing

• Lead the design and development of X-band microwave antennas for SAR applications
• Design and optimise electronically steerable / reconfigurable antenna architectures, including antenna elements, feeds and associated RF hardware
• Perform antenna and electromagnetic modelling using HFSS, CST, ADS or similar tools
• Own RF hardware from schematic capture and component selection through PCB layout, fabrication and board bring-up
• Develop antenna, RF backend and supporting digital PCBs
• Build, integrate and debug antenna/RF prototypes in the lab
• Characterise antenna performance using VNAs, spectrum analysers and anechoic chamber testing
• Develop antenna calibration, monitoring and test approaches
• Work across RF, electrical, software and spacecraft engineering to integrate the antenna into the complete satellite
• Support the transition from early prototypes into flight-ready and repeatable hardware

What we're looking for

• 5+ years of experience in microwave antenna, RF or electromagnetic hardware development
• Strong fundamentals in electromagnetics, microwave engineering and antenna design
• Proven experience personally taking antenna designs from concept → simulation → prototype → test
• Experience with phased arrays, electronically steered antennas, metasurfaces, reflectarrays, transmitarrays or other reconfigurable antenna technologies
• Hands-on RF/mixed-signal PCB design experience, ideally including schematic capture, layout and board bring-up
• Experience with HFSS, CST, ADS or equivalent electromagnetic/RF simulation tools
• Practical RF test experience including VNA, S-parameters, gain and radiation-pattern measurements
• Experience designing within microwave frequency bands such as S, C, X, Ku, K or Ka Particularly valuable

Experience with any of the following would be highly relevant:

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) | X-band radar | Satellite payloads | Space hardware | Phased arrays | Metasurface antennas | Beam steering | High-power RF | Antenna calibration | Anechoic chamber testing | Aerospace qualification

Why join?

You'll be joining a small engineering team where you can have genuine ownership of the antenna architecture and hardware, rather than working on a small subsystem within a large organisation.

The technology has the potential to fundamentally change how high-resolution SAR imagery is produced from LEO, and you'll have the opportunity to take the antenna system from its current development stage through to flight hardware and ultimately orbit.

Location: Durham, NC

Compensation: Competitive base salary + equity + benefits

Relocation: Available for the right candidate

If you've built microwave antennas and RF hardware and want the opportunity to own the complete antenna development lifecycle for a new satellite platform, I'd be keen to speak.

Apply directly or contact Sam Stocks at EVONA for a confidential discussion.