DSP / SDR Receiver Engineer — Navigation & Communications

Job description

About Us: Swan delivers the future of defense and industry through scalable autonomous products. Swan is backed by leading defense VCs including a16z's American Dynamism fund. DSP / SDR RECEIVER ENGINEER — NAVIGATION & COMMUNICATIONS We are looking for a DSP / SDR engineer to help design, implement, and test software-defined radio receivers for navigation and communications applications. The role is focused on signal-processing receiver design: acquisition, tracking, synchronization, Doppler estimation, timing recovery, and real-time processing of RF signals. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience building receiver signal-processing chains for GNSS, satellite communications, radar, wireless PHY, spectrum monitoring, or related RF systems. RESPONSIBILITIES - Design and implement SDR receiver algorithms for real-world RF signals. - Develop acquisition, tracking, synchronization, and measurement-generation pipelines. - Estimate Doppler, carrier phase, timing, delay, and signal quality metrics. - Work with SDR platforms such as USRP/UHD, GNU Radio, RFSoC, or FPGA-based systems. - Analyze collected RF data and debug receiver performance in lab and field environments. - Evaluate waveform structure, modulation, channel behavior, and receiver implementation tradeoffs. - Support navigation and communications experiments using GNSS, LEO satellite downlinks, or other opportunistic signals. DESIRED BACKGROUND Strong candidates may come from one or more of the following areas: - GNSS / PNT receiver design - Satellite communications modem or PHY development - Radar signal processing - Electronic warfare, ELINT, SIGINT, or spectrum monitoring - Wireless PHY / LTE / 5G baseband processing - Real-time SDR or FPGA-based signal processing USEFUL SKILLS - SDR development with GNU Radio, USRP/UHD, RFSoC, or FPGA SDR platforms - Real-time DSP implementation - Signal acquisition and tracking loops - PLL / FLL / DLL design - Doppler estimation and tracking - Carrier recovery and timing recovery - Matched filtering and correlation-based detection - Frame synchronization and preamble detection - OFDM, TDMA, DVB-S2/DVB-S2X, or other modem PHY experience - GNSS observables such as pseudorange, carrier phase, Doppler, clocks, and ephemerides - Navigation filtering, EKFs, factor graphs, or INS/GNSS integration - Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or similar signal-processing tools IDEAL CANDIDATE The strongest candidate combines practical SDR implementation experience with deep receiver signal-processing intuition. They should be comfortable working with imperfect real-world RF data, debugging acquisition/tracking behavior, and turning signal-processing algorithms into working receiver software. Experience with GNSS, LEO satellite signals, satcom downlinks, radar, EW, SIGINT, or wireless PHY systems is especially relevant.