Radio Frequency PCB Design Engineer

About Orion Edge

We are an agile, early-stage startup in a rapid growth phase, developing next-generation electronic warfare (EW) and digital disruption equipment. Our mission is to deliver cutting-edge capabilities to the modern warfighter at speed. Orion Edge is currently delivering systems to the US Army and USSOCOM, and we are scaling quickly to support the broader Department of Defense (DoD). If you thrive in a fast-paced environment where your work directly impacts national security and you have the opportunity to scale your career with a growing company, you belong here.

Position Overview

As an RF PCB Design Engineer at Orion Edge, you will own the physical realization of our radio frequency hardware. Every emitter, receiver, and signal chain we field begins as a schematic and a set of simulated geometries, and you are the engineer who turns those into manufacturable, high-performance boards that survive contact with the real world.

In this role, you will lead complex layer stack-ups, route controlled-impedance transmission lines, and enforce the layout discipline that separates a design that works in simulation from a design that works in the field. You will partner directly with our RF Design & Simulations Engineers to preserve modeled performance through fabrication, and with our board houses to get exotic substrates built correctly the first time.

If you want your boards flying, driving, and swimming on real missions within months rather than years, you are the ideal fit for this team.

Education Requirements

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a closely related technical field. Equivalent demonstrated experience with a strong portfolio of released RF/microwave layouts will be considered in lieu of a degree.

Key Responsibilities

Physical Layout Ownership: Lead the physical layout of RF, microwave, and mixed-signal printed circuit boards using Altium Designer, from floor-planning through manufacturing release.

Stack-Up & Impedance Control: Manage complex multi-layer stack-ups and route controlled-impedance traces - microstrip, stripline, and grounded coplanar waveguide - to hold strict signal integrity across targeted frequency bands.

RF Layout Discipline: Implement RF layout best practices including via stitching and via fencing, shielding and compartmentalization, ground pour management, and isolation techniques that minimize crosstalk, EMI, and parasitic capacitance and inductance.

Design Intent Translation: Work closely with RF Design Engineers to translate schematic requirements and simulated geometries into highly accurate physical layouts, preserving modeled performance from EM tool to fabricated board.

Manufacturing Release: Prepare complete manufacturing packages - Gerbers, ODB++, drill files, fabrication and assembly drawings, and stack-up documentation - and collaborate with board houses and assembly partners on specialized RF substrates and process tolerances.

Mixed-Signal Integration: Partition and route boards that combine RF front ends with high-speed digital, SDR/FPGA interfaces, and sensitive analog and power sections without compromising any of them.

Bring-Up Support: Support lab bring-up and characterization alongside design and test engineers, using measured results to close the loop on layout decisions and improve the next spin.

Required Skills & Experience

Professional Experience: Minimum of 3 years of hands-on experience performing RF/microwave or high-speed digital PCB layout in a product development environment.

Altium Proficiency: Demonstrated experience using Altium Designer specifically for RF/microwave or high-speed digital PCB layout, including constraint-driven routing, rules management, and library discipline.

Transmission Line Implementation: Proven ability to design and route controlled-impedance structures - microstrip, stripline, grounded coplanar waveguide - and to execute clean launches, transitions, and connector interfaces.

RF Materials Knowledge: Strong understanding of RF laminates and substrates, dielectric constants, loss tangents, copper roughness, and how real fabrication tolerances impact RF performance.

RF Fundamentals: Familiarity with interpreting RF schematics and a working understanding of core RF concepts, including S-parameters, wavelength scaling, impedance matching, and return path behavior.

Isolation & EMI Practice: Demonstrated command of grounding strategy, shielding, compartmentalization, and layout-driven mitigation of coupling, leakage, and spurious paths.

Manufacturing Output: Hands-on experience generating and releasing complete fabrication and assembly data packages, and working directly with board houses on DFM and DFA feedback.

Standards Familiarity: Working familiarity with IPC standards applicable to design and fabrication (e.g., IPC-2221, IPC-2141, IPC-6012 Class 2/3).

U.S. Citizenship & Security Clearance: Must be a U.S. citizen and must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. This position requires access to export-controlled technical data under ITAR and EAR.

Preferred Qualifications

Defense Hardware Experience: Prior RF layout work on electronic warfare, SIGINT, radar, counter-UAS, or tactical communications hardware.

Exotic Substrates: Hands-on experience with Rogers, Taconic, Isola, and PTFE-based laminates, hybrid stack-ups, and bonded multi-material constructions.

Frequency Range: Demonstrated layout experience spanning HF through Ka-band, particularly designs above 6 GHz.

EM-Informed Layout: Experience running or interpreting EM extraction and co-simulation results (Ansys HFSS, Keysight ADS Momentum/RFPro, or similar) to validate layout geometry before release.

High-Power RF: Experience laying out printed wire assemblies for high-power transmit chains, including thermal relief, copper coin or heavy copper construction, and coupled thermal/RF trade-offs.

Mechanical Co-Design: Comfort working in ECAD/MCAD co-design flows and collaborating with mechanical engineers on enclosure, connector, and thermal integration.

Environmental Qualification: Familiarity with designing hardware intended to pass MIL-STD-810 environmental and MIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC qualification.

Certification: IPC Certified Interconnect Designer (CID or CID+).

Rigid-Flex: Experience with flex and rigid-flex construction in space-constrained assemblies.

Professional Attributes

Layout as Circuit Design: You understand that at microwave frequencies geometry is not packaging - it is the circuit. You treat every return path, discontinuity, and ground stitch as a design decision with measurable consequences.

First-Spin Mindset: You take personal ownership of getting boards right the first time, because in our world a wasted fabrication cycle is a wasted month of program schedule.

Manufacturing Fluent: You design for the shop that will actually build the board. You know which tolerances are free, which are expensive, and which will quietly destroy your insertion loss budget.

Clear Communicator: You can explain a layout constraint to an RF engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a fab vendor, and have all three understand exactly what you need.

Self-Directed & Resourceful: You are comfortable working from incomplete specifications, making defensible engineering assumptions, and moving forward rather than waiting for perfect inputs.

Curious & Collaborative: You want to be in the lab when your board comes up on the VNA, and you use what you measure to make the next design better.