Senior Systems Engineer II - RF Mission Solutions Verified today
About Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected and protected, and expand humanity's reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The Space Systems team has enabled more than 1,700 missions, including interplanetary exploration, in-space manufacturing, and national security initiatives for NASA, the Space Development Agency, and the U.S. Space Force.
The Role
Based in Long Beach, CA, you will serve as Senior RF Mission Architect, holding primary technical ownership over how our payload product line evolves to capture new missions. 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 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 proposals, and defend design choices.
- Shape the hardware roadmap: use customer mission insights 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 architectures are buildable and transition cleanly into flight development.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, or other technical discipline
- 8+ 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
- Eligible to obtain and maintain TS/SCI security clearance
Preferred Qualifications
- 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
- Comfortable in ambiguity and open-ended missions; resilient against "that can't be done" thinking
- Collaborative across business development, engineering, executives, suppliers, and partners
- Clear communicator able to explain complex decisions in mission and financial context
- Entrepreneurial and eager to pursue bold ideas
Compensation and Benefits
Base salary: $132,000 to $198,000 USD. Total compensation (base and equity): $164,000 to $255,000 USD. Anticipated annual equity grant value is designed around function, level, experience, and other factors; realized value depends on vesting and stock-price performance.
Benefits include company stock as part of your total compensation package, Employee Stock Purchase Program with 15% discount, medical plans (HMO, PPO, zero-cost HDHP with HSA company contribution), dental and vision, 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 merchandise store, and additional employee discounts.
Working Conditions
This position may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, computer work, and occasional exposure to moderate levels of noise, dust, and fumes in production areas.
Employment Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations including ITAR, employees must be a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), lawfully admitted refugee or asylee, or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or Department of Commerce.