Lead Radar Engineer, Mars Orbiter

You'll be the technical lead and responsible engineer for a wideband UHF shallow radar sounder for a Mars orbiter mission, owning the instrument from design through spacecraft integration, calibration, and commissioning, with no hand-off to another team mid-stream.

The instrument operates in two modes: a sounder mode that measures subsurface layer reflections and a radiometer mode that measures the temperature of subsurface layers over a wide footprint.

This is a hybrid role: you will personally execute significant portions of the design and analysis while providing technical leadership, working closely with our science partners as their primary engineering counterpart. You will co-design the instrument against science objectives and develop the flight hardware and processing implementations.

Own the system design for the radar electronics, signal processing chain, and antenna system at the vehicle level for both sounder and radiometer modes, including instrument performance, power, and mass budgets, link budgets, and SNR/penetration-depth analyses

Lead waveform trade studies in collaboration with the science partners, implement the waveforms and baseline algorithms they develop, and co-design with the science team to ensure the instrument meets science adequacy and mission science objectives

Lead the hardware development, including prototype development and validation at the brass board level ahead of flight designs

Define the instrument calibration scheme for both radar and radiometer modes

Coordinate hardware development across RF, digital, power, and mechanical disciplines, along with firmware and software development

Lead instrument qualification and acceptance testing, integration into the spacecraft, and terrestrial analog flight testing, including test integration and post-flight data review

Perform spectrum licensing and frequency coordination for instrument operation and testing and support instrument calibration and on-orbit commissioning

About You:

7+ years of experience in electrical hardware development, such as software defined radios, radar transceivers, or sophisticated digital processors

Demonstrated ability to develop and manage radar system performance budgets

Experience with analysis and modeling of radar returns and radar performance

Experience implementing radio or radar transceivers as software-defined radios

Field testing, flight testing, or spaceflight experience with radio or radar transceivers

Deep expertise in one or more of the following:

Implementation of signal processing chains in FPGA and/or GPU processing

Design of mixed-signal and digital PCBs, such as software-defined radios or board-level FPGA designs

RF circuit design, including power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, and filters

Antenna design and verification

Nice to haves but not required:

Experience with microwave radiometry or radiometer instrument design

Familiarity with planetary or terrestrial radars (e.g., SHARAD, MARSIS, RIMFAX, ice-penetrating radar)

Hands-on experience with AMD/Xilinx RFSoC or Zynq UltraScale+ platforms

Experience with spectrum licensing and frequency coordination for experimental or space systems

Experience with polarimetric radar and full-polarimetry calibration

Experience taking RF payloads through PDR/CDR, qualification, and spacecraft integration

At Relativity Space, we are committed to transparency and fairness in our compensation practices. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and other job-related factors. Compensation is only one part of our total rewards package. Relativity Space offers competitive salary and equity, a generous PTO and sick leave policy, parental leave, an annual learning and development stipend, and more! To see some of the benefits & perks we offer, please visit here.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at accommodations@relativityspace.com.

Please note: Relativity Space does not accept unsolicited resumes, candidate profiles, or referrals from recruitment agencies or search firms. Any unsolicited submission - via email, our website, social media, or directly to an employee - will be deemed the property of Relativity Space, and no fee will be owed absent a current, fully executed agreement with Talent Acquisition that specifically authorizes submissions for the applicable role.