Principal RF Engineer

Company Overview

Metrea delivers effects-as-a-service to national security partners across five domains and more than a dozen mission areas. These include airborne ISR, electronic warfare, secure communications, aerial refueling, special air missions, aerial firefighting, and advanced simulation. We own the whole stack: designing, building, and operating turnkey capabilities that give our partners decisive, asymmetric advantage against rapidly evolving threats.

Our operating model is built around three interlocking pillars. The Support Groups provide a global shared-service – spanning people, finance, platform, operations, legal, and engagement. This frees up our Core Groups, who develop and own mission capabilities end-to-end, to focus entirely on delivery. The Market Groups apply a regional lens, ensuring that our agile and adaptable capabilities remain aligned to the wicked problems that matter most to our partners across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific.

At the heart of our model is a simple but powerful idea: be a true partner with skin in the game. Our partners need effects, not just equipment. By owning the full stack – from the lab to the field – we are able to drive a continuous cycle of innovation that keeps our partners ahead. It's a fast-moving, intellectually demanding environment where talented people are given real responsibility, work on problems that matter, and contribute to an enterprise that is growing quickly and deliberately.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, with facilities across the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Group Overview

Electromagnetic and Cyber Group (EM&C) is responsible for developing flexible and survivable advanced electronic warfare and secure communications equipment while providing the industry’s leading signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and cyber experts. Metrea specializes in signal classification, direction finding, advanced geolocation techniques, and waveform development including waveforms for MANET and LPI/LPD applications. Metrea also develops special purpose radios for government customers and licenses DF and geolocation solutions to multiple OEMs. Within EM&C, RADLAB is our radar capability area. RADLAB is a small team building novel capabilities from the ground up, taking ideas from physics and math through simulation, prototype, and test.

Capability Area:

The Electromagnetic and Cyber Group (EM&C) inside Metrea develops and builds systems for communications, RF sensing, and electromagnetic effects. Within EM&C, the Radar Lab (RADLAB) turns advanced integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) concepts into working systems. Staffed and organized around a Bell Labs model, RADLAB’s work starts from fundamental first-principles physics and applied mathematics: deriving signal models, algorithms, and performance predictions, then carrying them through simulation, prototype, hardware test, and mission application. Our research is driven by real operational problems. The work has to result in hardware that gets built and measured, but there is time and space to do the science and engineering right, and because the team is small and hands-on, our scientists and engineers stay close to the ideas they develop and the systems they build. Good ideas are welcome from anywhere on the team, but they have to connect back to capability someone needs.

Position Summary

RADLAB is looking for a Principal RF Engineer to own the RF front-end design for our advanced integrated sensing-and-communications (ISAC) design, test and evaluation (DT&E) platform. You will be responsible for the signal chain from the antenna element port inward through the analog-digital interface, complementing our principal antenna engineer who owns the radiating elements and array design. Together, you will define and maintain a clean interface between the antenna and RF front-end domains.

This is a hands-on individual-contributor role with significant technical leadership responsibility. You will translate system-level requirements into producible RF hardware, starting from trade studies through schematic capture, simulation, PCB layout and fabrication oversight, and bench validation. You will work directly with our prototype engineer to bring up and characterize hardware. The DT&E platform requires RF front-ends spanning C-band, Ka-band, and millimeter-wave frequencies, so the ability to work across frequency regimes is essential.

What You'll Do

Own the RF front-end architecture for the DT&E platform: signal chain topology, component selection, and interface definitions

Design modular and testable receive and transmit signal chains: LNAs, PAs, TR switching, filtering, frequency conversion, and frequency synthesis, owning the cascade analysis, noise figure budget, linearity allocation, spurious plan, and power dissipation budget

Develop frequency synthesis and LO distribution architectures that maintain phase coherence across multi-element systems, owning the trade-offs between integration, phase noise, spurious performance, and layout complexity

Coordinate with the principal antenna engineer at the element-port boundary: translate scan impedance data into matching network designs, feed back PA load-pull requirements, and ensure front-end packaging is compatible with element spacing and thermal constraints

Own the RF PCB design intent end-to-end: stack-up definition, material selection, impedance requirements, RF/EM co-simulation, and shielding strategy. Perform layout directly or drive external layout vendors with clear constraints and review their work for RF correctness. Generate manufacturing packages and resolve DFM issues through fabrication and assembly

Work directly with other engineers to bring up, calibrate, and characterize RF front-end hardware. Diagnose and resolve issues from bench measurements through system-level integration

Design and adapt RF front-ends across C-band, Ka-band, and potentially millimeter-wave, addressing the packaging, thermal, and loss challenges specific to each regime

Specify and integrate RF components with digital subsystems. Collaborate with FPGA and DSP engineers on the analog-digital interface: clocking, data formats, signal conditioning, and the analog/digital boundary

Define RF test and calibration procedures for front-end and system-level performance verification

Lead design reviews, establish RF design standards and documentation practices within RADLAB, and mentor junior engineers

Contribute to proposals and technical white papers with RF feasibility assessments and architecture concepts

What You Bring

BS, MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, RF/Microwave Engineering, or a closely related field

10+ years of professional experience designing performance-critical RF hardware in a radar, EW, communications, or similar system context. Equivalent depth through other kinds of applied RF engineering will also be considered, including RF hardware design in academic research, national labs, or FFRDCs

Comfort working within system-level constraints set by the broader team: there is significant design freedom within the domain, but requirements come from the mission

Demonstrated experience owning RF subsystems end-to-end: from architecture and trade studies through schematic capture, simulation, PCB layout, fabrication, bring-up, and test

Proficiency in RF cascade analysis, link budget development, noise figure budgeting, and transceiver system design

Strong hands-on experience with RF circuit simulation (ADS, MWO, MATLAB, or equivalent) tools

Proficiency in RF/microwave PCB design: impedance-controlled routing, high-frequency material selection and characterization, multi-layer stack-up design, and EM co-simulation

Experience with schematic capture and layout tools (Altium, OrCAD, DxDesigner, or equivalent)

Deep familiarity with RF test and measurement equipment: VNA, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, oscilloscopes, noise figure meters

Clear technical writing and the ability to communicate design decisions, performance trade-offs, and test results to both RF and non-RF engineers

Preferred Qualifications

Direct experience designing TR modules or multi-channel RF front-end hardware for active arrays

Experience across multiple frequency regimes (C-band through Ka-band or mmWave), including the packaging, interconnect, and thermal management challenges that change as you move up in frequency

Experience with EM simulation tools (HFSS, CST, or equivalent)

Experience integrating RF front-ends with high-speed digital backends: ADC/DAC interfaces, JESD204B/C, FPGA-based DDS, clocking architectures

Familiarity with ISAC, joint radar-communications, or cognitive/adaptive waveform concepts

Publications or patents in relevant RF, antenna, radar, or EW domains

An MS or PhD with research in a hardware-intensive RF domain, particularly if you have designed, built, and measured your own RF hardware and you'd like to see your work go from the lab all the way to fielded capability

Benefits

Comprehensive medical plan options

HSA/FSA accounts

Dental and vision coverage

6% employer 401(k) match

Fully paid parental leave for all new parents

Generous PTO

Life and disability insurance

Long-term and Short-term disability coverage

AD&D Coverage

Pet Insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Subsided gym membership / plans through Wellhub

Work Authorization / Security Clearance

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States

Must be a U.S. citizen

This position requires the ability to obtain and hold an active, verified, and in good standing U.S. Government security clearance at the Top Secret level. Candidates will be subject to a background investigation in accordance with federal requirements

AAP/EEO Statement

Metrea Advanced Signals LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.

Position Type and Expected Hours of Work

This is a full-time exempt position with typical working hours of Monday through Friday inside of standard business hours. Hours and work shifts may change in accordance with department and business needs. Exempt Employees must have the ability to be on-call and available, as business needs require.

Work Environment

Office and Lab

Travel

<5%

Base Pay Range

The compensation range shown below is a good faith estimate and reflects the expected base pay for this position upon hire. This is just one component of Metrea's overall approach to total rewards and final compensation decisions, including the ultimate salary or hourly rate agreed upon, may vary depending on factors such as job location, job-specific knowledge, skills, experience, and the overall negotiated compensation package. Eligible full-time employees also receive a comprehensive benefits package designed to support their health, wellbeing, and long-term success.

Pay Range$175,000—$200,000 USD

Our Firmware

At Metrea, our single core value is Rooted in Humility, and our four cornerstone attributes are Entrepreneurial, Systematic, Discerning, and Over-Deliver. These form what we call our Teammate Firmware. Just like technical firmware connects software and hardware, our Firmware is the constant interface between our mission and our people. It defines how we show up, how we work together, and how we solve complex problems.

Our team Firmware creates a web-like, hyper-collaborative, dynamically hierarchical way of working that helps us adapt quickly, communicate openly, and distribute decision-making to where expertise actually lives. It enables groups to self-organize around hard problems, shift fluidly as priorities evolve, and operate with the trust, curiosity, and discipline required in a complex mission space. This foundation allows us to deliver elegant, effective solutions and uphold our purpose: protecting our precious inheritance.