Senior Systems Engineer I - RF Mission Solutions Verified today
About Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems. We build real hardware for meaningful missions across interplanetary exploration, in-space manufacturing, and national security. Our Space Systems team has enabled more than 1,700 missions and builds everything from complete spacecraft to precision payloads and subsystems like solar panels, flight software, star trackers, optical systems, and radios.
The Role
Based in Long Beach, CA, you will serve as Senior RF Mission Architect, holding primary technical ownership over how our core product line evolves to capture new missions. You operate on a work fast, bid fast, build fast cadence, designing high-performance payload products for next-generation tactical satcom, space-based sensing, and direct-to-cell constellations.
You will balance link budgets, antenna architectures, digital vs analog components, and SWaP-C constraints while authoring those trades into winning technical concepts for defense and commercial customers.
What You'll Do
- Architect clean-sheet payloads: run early mission trades, define payload topologies, analog vs digital conversion boundaries, waveform processing constraints, and integration of cryptographic requirements for optimal mission profiles.
- Drive technical capture: work directly with customers and leadership to frame complex RF trade-offs, write core technical architecture narratives for key proposals, and defend your design choices.
- Shape the hardware roadmap: use insights from customer mission needs to directly influence internal R&D, payload prototyping, and technology investments.
- Bridge concept to flight: partner with payload hardware, software, and spacecraft teams to ensure the architectures you pitch are buildable and transition cleanly into flight development.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, or other technical discipline
- 5+ years of experience in aerospace or defense RF systems
- Demonstrated track record architecting complex multi-function RF, SAR/radar, or digital communication payloads from concept to proposal win
- Active TS/SCI security clearance
Nice to Have
- Advanced degree in RF/microwave, electromagnetics, radar, or related field
- Experience in antennas, arrays, RF front-end architectures, TR modules, DSP
- Radar techniques: SAR, MTI, STAP, performance modeling
- Advanced waveforms, protected tactical standards, spectrum management
- Digital payload concepts and RF-compute convergence
- Radiation effects and resilient RF architectures
- Zero trust and post-quantum cryptography requirements at hardware level
- Tools: STK, MATLAB, Python, HFSS, CST
- Understanding of spacecraft bus systems and their impact on payloads
- RF-centric mission design and integration experience
- Either a seasoned architect ready to influence strategy, or a fast-learning cleared engineer ready to accelerate into mission formulation
Compensation and Benefits
Base salary: $124,000 to $171,000 USD. Total compensation including equity: $144,000 to $206,000 USD.
Benefits include company stock as part of total compensation, Employee Stock Purchase Program with 15% discount, medical plans (HMO, PPO, zero-cost HDHP with HSA match), dental and vision coverage, paid vacation and sick time, 11 paid holidays, flexible spending and dependent care accounts, paid parental leave, disability and life insurance, 401(k) with company match, subsidized EV charging, onsite fitness centers, discounted gym memberships, complimentary snacks and beverages, 50% employee discount on company merch, and other employee discounts.
Work Environment
This position may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, and computer work, with occasional exposure to moderate levels of noise, dust, and fumes in production areas.
Requirements for US Offices
To comply with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), refugee, or asylee, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State or U.S. Department of Commerce.