Specialist, RF Electrical Engineer at Acron Aviation in Phoenix, AZ

About Acron Aviation (Avionics – Surveillance):

Acron Aviation designs, engineers, and manufactures certified avionics systems that support safety-critical flight operations across commercial and military aviation. Within Avionics, the Surveillance product line develops and sustains systems that enable aircraft awareness, collision avoidance, and airspace interoperability. Our portfolio includes TCAS, Mode S transponders, ADS-B, and integrated surveillance solutions deployed across commercial, military, and rotorcraft platforms. This work is performed in highly regulated environments and demands deep expertise across systems, hardware, software, and RF throughout the full product lifecycle.

Position Summary:

Acron Aviation is seeking a self-motivated Specialist RF Engineer to join our RF Design team. As a design role, the engineer will work to create and deliver mission critical RF systems solutions for various customers. The office location for this role is Phoenix, Arizona, or Grand Rapids, Michigan, for full-time, in-person work. The Specialist RF Engineer is a key contributor to new design activity (requirements analysis, component selection, schematic capture, layout) as well as supporting existing products within the product portfolio. The engineer will work with both junior and senior RF engineers, as well as cross-functional teams (electrical, mechanical, software, systems) for all technical aspects of the RF/microwave electrical design. The position will be within the ACSS (Surveillance) product line, designing and supporting ACAS/TCAS, transponder, DME, UAT, and other RF functions.

Key Responsibilities

• Good verbal, written communication, and excellent analytical skills are essential for this position.
• Ability to work independently, as well as contribute to the work of multi-disciplinary engineering teams to ensure the successful development of RF systems and assemblies.
• Derive RF hardware requirements from system level specifications.
• Detail functional blocks to support surveillance system architectures.
• Perform RF/analog circuit design and hardware engineering from the component level up to entire systems.
• Support detailed design, analysis, development and testing of hardware.
• Design for and support DO-160 and/or MIL-STD qualification of RF electronics (environmental, EMI/EMC).
• Conduct and participate in internal and external system design reviews.
• Present concepts, designs, actionable information, and results to program management and Acron Aviation customers.
• Lead or work in conjunction with mechanical, systems and software engineering to meet challenging performance requirements.
• Support internal peer design reviews, design verification testing of engineering units, and oversight of design through production.
• Develop methods for modifying systems to include new RF and wireless capabilities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree and minimum 4 years of prior relevant experience. Graduate Degree and a minimum of 2 years of prior related experience.
• Minimum of 4 years of RF design experience for fielded products, with preference for commercial avionics applications.
• Candidate must have an academia background in electro-magnetic (EM) and RF/microwave theory.

Preferred Additional Skills

• Experience designing RF CCAs operating at frequencies ranging from UHF through E-band, but with focus in L-band (1GHz). Design activities will include frequency synthesizers, up/down converters, front-end electronics and other RF electronics.
• Experience with simulation and/or 3D modeling tools such as HFSS, AWR Microwave Office and/or ADS.
• Understanding of critical performance characteristics of passive and active RF components such as ADCs, DACs, Amplifiers, Oscillators, Attenuators, Mixers and Filters. An understanding of how these characteristics relate to a system's performance is a plus.
• Working understanding and knowledge of S-parameters (matching networks, cascade analysis, …), Gain budget analysis (Gain, NF, Linearity, Noise power, … ), and Filtering (types, bandwidth, implementations, … ).
• A strong understanding of noise figure/noise temperature (Eb/No, BER vs. noise, receiver sensitivity, and expected value and variance), temperature effects, interconnection (standard and non-standard impedances), and isolation requirements

Equal Opportunity Statement

Acron Aviation is proud to be an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to treating all employees and applicants with respect and dignity and to maintaining a workplace free from unlawful discrimination. All applicants will be considered for employment regardless of race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or other related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, citizenship status, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Additional Information:

Acron Aviation maintains a drug-free workplace and conducts pre-employment substance abuse testing and background checks, where allowed by law. Acron Aviation is an E-Verify employer