RF Payload Engineer - Space Antenna (gn) @ DefenceTech Venture, Munich

Job description

This is an Atlantic portfolio company. Who we are We are a stealth space defence company. Our mission is to keep order in orbit. Just as fighter jets secure the skies and navy ships secure the seas, we are building the systems that will protect the assets above us: the satellites our economies, security, and daily lives depend on. Space has become contested. As orbit fills with infrastructure and threats alike, Europe needs sovereign means to deter, defend, and uphold law and order beyond the atmosphere. We are at the stage where the first hires define what the company becomes. Today, the team is the three founders, building the first systems, setting the technical direction, and proving the mission. The next people to join will be among the company's first employees. They will not be joining an existing machine. They will help build one. That means real authorship. The architecture, the engineering culture, the operating rhythm, and the standard of execution are still being formed. For the right person, this is the opportunity to help shape a European space defence company from its earliest days. We are looking for mission-driven people who want to defend the high ground, and who are ready to have honest debates about the use of force in space, its limits, and its ethics. Your Role & Responsibilities You will help build the RF payload that flies on our first spacecraft. That means designing a new RF payload that sweeps broad frequency ranges and steers its beams in a phased-array manner, operating across the ISM bands and the main space communication bands (S, X, Ku, Ka). Your work will determine whether the payload radiates and receives cleanly, points where it is told to, survives launch and orbit, and ultimately performs when it matters. The payload has to fly in roughly 18 months. It is also built to last: the hardware you design must stay useful for years after launch, with new algorithms and waveforms uploaded via software patch. Think of it as software-defined hardware, a Swiss army knife in orbit whose blades we will keep adding to long after it leaves the ground. This is one of the first engineering roles. You will work directly with the three founders and have significant influence over core technical decisions from day one. You will not be handed a mature RF architecture to maintain. You will help create it, integrate it, test it on the ground, and evolve it into a flight-ready system. The work will be broad and practical. One day you might be laying out the array geometry and simulating beam patterns. The next you could be routing an RF PCB, characterising a phase shifter chain on the bench, chasing down spurious emissions, evaluating amplifier suppliers, or preparing the payload for environmental testing. This role requires a lot of curiosity and self-management. There is no established process to follow and no one to hand you a fully specified task. You will need to identify what matters, go and find out what you do not know, and drive your own work forward. The expectation is not that you know everything. It is that you have seen enough real RF systems to know where they break, and that when they do, you can figure it out fast. What you'll own You will own the RF payload stack from architecture through to flight integration, including: Phased array antenna design, from element and array geometry through to simulation, prototyping, and anechoic chamber testing. None exists yet; this is a fully custom design. The amplification stack: RF amplifiers (LNAs, PAs, and solid state power amplifiers), combiners, and power delivery to get real radiated power out of a small, power-constrained spacecraft The phase shifter stack: the electronic components and control paths that steer the array at silicon speed Digital beamforming and multi-beam antenna architecture RF PCB design, layout, and characterisation across wideband and multi-band operation The interface to the software-defined radio: designing the hardware so the SDR can generate, receive, and evolve signals for years post-launch Payload integration, ground testing, and the path to flight qualification You will build for real constraints: wide bandwidth, limited power and mass, thermal loads in vacuum, radiation, launch vibration, electromagnetic compatibility with the rest of the spacecraft, and a component supply chain that rarely behaves perfectly. You will also help establish the foundations around the system, including RF test setups, anechoic chamber measurement procedures, procurement workflows, and the first steps toward a space-qualified payload. What we're looking for We are looking for someone with strong practical depth in RF, microwave, and antenna engineering. You should bring: Hands-on experience designing, building, and testing RF systems, not just modelling or simulation Experience with phased arrays, digital beamforming, or multi-beam antenna design Practical understanding of RF amplifiers (LNAs, PAs, and solid state power amplifiers), phase shifters, combiners, and RF front-end chains Strong RF PCB circuit design and layout skills, including high-frequency signal integrity Working understanding of software-defined radio and how signals are generated, received, and processed, enough to design hardware that software can keep evolving Strong intuition for thermal management, power delivery, and system integration Confidence working across RF, digital electronics, mechanics, and software to solve problems Comfort with RF test equipment: VNAs, spectrum analysers, signal generators, and anechoic chamber measurements A high degree of curiosity and self-management: you ask why, dig into what you do not understand, and keep moving without being told what to do next A degree in Electrical or Electronic Engineering is preferred; Aerospace Engineering or Computer Science with relevant RF depth also works. No PhD or postdoc is required. What matters most is having built real systems. Experience building RF hardware for space systems is a strong plus, not a must. If you have done this for space, we want to talk to you immediately. You must have NATO member state citizenship. You've probably seen some of this before An antenna array that matched simulation beautifully until it was packaged next to the rest of the electronics. An amplifier chain that met spec on the datasheet but ran hot, compressed early, or spat out spurs in the real system. A phase shifter stack whose calibration drifted with temperature and turned a clean beam into a smeared one. A wideband design where the hard part was not any single band but making all of them coexist on one board. A field or chamber test where the system failed and you had to work backwards from incomplete data to find the root cause. Nice to have Experience with any of the following is a bonus: HFSS, CST, ADS, or equivalent RF and electromagnetic simulation tools Space systems: flight hardware, radiation-tolerant design, or environmental qualification FPGA-based digital beamforming or high-speed data converter interfaces SDR platforms and frameworks (e.g. USRP, GNU Radio, or custom SDR hardware) SIGINT, radar, or defence RF systems EMC/EMI design and testing Building RF systems that operate outside the lab, in real environmental conditions