Senior RF Systems Engineer

Urban Sky is a venture-backed aerospace startup on a mission to pioneer humanity’s routine, easy access to the stratosphere and the value locked within it. We design, build, operate, and sell stratospheric balloon systems. The data we collect supports a wide range of applications, from real-time wildfire monitoring to urban mapping. Our technology is also employed by government customers including the Department of War (DoW), NASA, and others. Urban Sky sends flight vehicles to the stratosphere on a weekly basis.

Our team consists of engineers, makers, developers, and doers who believe in the power of human potential when passion meets utility within a small, supportive team. At Urban Sky we strive to create a team culture grounded in candor, inclusion, respect and empowerment.

We aim to build the next chapter of stratospheric history in Denver and Texas and are seeking self-starting, open-minded, and hard-working team members.

About Role:

Urban Sky is seeking a Senior RF Systems Engineer to own the RF domain across the company – every emitter, receiver, antenna, and link, from the boards on our vehicles to the ground stations that talk to them.

Our flight vehicles are dense RF environments: SATCOM, stratospheric command links, GNSS, software-defined radios, and emitters operating within feet of each other on a single platform. You’ll own how all of that RF coexists, closes its links, and survives crowded & contested environments.

Key Responsibilities:

• Review and optimize every emitting and receiving system across our avionics and devices (SATCOM, stratospheric command links, GNSS, SDRs), including board-level RF review with our electrical engineers: layout, filtering, shielding, desense, and co-site interference
• Review and optimize antenna selection, design, and placement across the fleet – LOS CSS radios, SDRs, SATCOM terminals, and GNSS
• Own RF link budgets across all mission phases and geometries, and validate them with hardware-in-the-loop and field testing
• Architect Urban Sky’s ground station systems and multi-node relay/bent-pipe topologies (balloon-to-balloon, balloon-to-ground, payload-to-ground)
• Develop solutions for MIMO architectures, mesh data backhaul, and efficient routing topology
• Harden RF systems for contested environments: jamming resilience, GPS protection, and graceful degradation
• Develop secure, encrypted networking standards for RF-borne data across vehicle, ground, and customer interfaces
• Lead RF integration and interference deconfliction for third-party payloads hosted on our platforms
• Evaluate RF-sensing partners and payloads
• Support spectrum planning, frequency coordination, and regulatory compliance (FCC, ITU)

Qualifications:

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Communications Engineering, or a related field
• 7+ years of hands-on RF systems engineering across hardware and system levels, preferably in aerospace, satellite, tactical comms, or high-altitude platforms
• Deep understanding of RF propagation, link budgets, modulation and coding, and antenna design principles
• Board-level RF experience: able to find and fix desense and interference problems with a spectrum analyzer and a schematic
• Hands-on test experience with spectrum analyzers, VNAs, signal generators, and antenna measurement
• Experience with software-defined radios and mesh or relay network architectures
• Working knowledge of secure communications (encryption, key management) as applied to RF links
• Strong scripting/analysis skills for link modeling and test automation

Nice-to-Haves / Preferred Skills:

• Experience with HABS, smallsat comms, or airborne relay architectures
• Contested-environment or electronic warfare experience (jamming, GPS denial, LPI/LPD)
• ISM, L-, or S-band systems and adaptive modulation/coding
• RF payload experience: direction finding, TDOA/geolocation, SIGINT, or SAR
• Antenna simulation tools
• An active US security clearance

Requirements:

• Must be US Citizen or Permanent Resident
• Ability to obtain and maintain a US security clearance may be required for certain programs
• Must be located near Denver, CO or willing to relocate; role is on-site at our Denver headquarters (4800 Race St)
• Travel expected to support field campaigns, test flights, and customer integration
• Stock Options
• Medical, Vision and Dental
• Unlimited / Felxable Leave Policy

Urban Sky is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

The pay range for this role is:

130,000 - 175,000 USD per year (Denver CO HQ)