Product Application Engineer

Location: Durham, North Carolina

Business Unit:

Cubic Defense

Company Details:

When you join Cubic, you become part of a company that creates and delivers technology solutions in transportation to make people’s lives easier by simplifying their daily journeys, and defense capabilities to help promote mission success and safety for those who serve their nation. Led by our talented teams around the world, Cubic is committed to solving global issues through innovation and service to our customers and partners.

We have a top-tier portfolio of businesses, including Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) and Cubic Defense (CD). Explore more on Cubic.com.

Job Details:

Job Summary:

The Product Applications Engineer (PAE) applies engineering principles, Nuvotronics product knowledge, and application experience to support customers in the design-in, integration, and use of Nuvotronics products. The PAE is an internal user of Nuvotronics products, developing evaluation boards and production-representative reference designs with particular emphasis on sound PCBA design principles, RF/mmWave board design, and component-to-system integration. They are also a technical bridge supporting customer activities, working closely with other Nuvotronics engineering disciplines to ensure good communication and coordination with customers. Additionally, the PAE is responsible for communicating customer technical needs to all relevant individuals and departments within Nuvotronics by collecting and documenting customer technical requirements and application needs.

The responsibilities of the PAE are divided into two major areas. First, the PAE is the initial user for PolyStrata products, developing evaluation boards, product demonstrations, and reusable reference designs that demonstrate recommended schematic, layout, stack-up, grounding, power-distribution, thermal, mechanical, assembly, and RF integration practices. Second, the PAE is the technical bridge with the customer, supporting technical discussions throughout the sales process and helping customers successfully integrate PolyStrata products into their PCBAs and RF subsystems. These responsibilities include maintaining customer engineering relationships, overseeing the technical engagement process, and acting as the point of contact for customer-related technical activities. The role requires the ability to logically navigate complex technical issues with many moving parts, strong communication, analytical, and interpersonal skills, and the ability to meet time-driven deliverables. The successful candidate will build collaborative relationships, help develop and implement product strategy, and drive design-in objectives.

We are looking for a Product Application Engineer (PAE) with experience in Defense, SATCOM, Test & Measurement, Mobile Infrastructure, or mmWave applications. The ideal candidate has practical experience designing and bringing up RF PCBAs, integrating RF components into larger assemblies, and translating product guidance into clear, validated reference designs for customers.

Essential Job Duties and Responsibilities (what you will do):

• Identifies new and expanded business opportunities within a market or region.
• Develop, document, validate, and maintain evaluation boards, customer-ready reference designs, and product demonstrations that accelerate successful design-in.
• Apply and communicate PCBA design principles, including stack-up definition, controlled-impedance routing, grounding and return-current management, power integrity, decoupling, thermal management, design for manufacturability, assembly, and test.
• Own RF PCBA implementation and integration activities, including RF transmission-line design, transitions and launches, connector and interconnect selection, placement and routing, shielding and isolation, bias networks, calibration/de-embedding structures, and mitigation of coupling, loss, and parasitic effects.
• Create reusable reference-design packages that include schematics, layouts, bills of materials, design notes, simulation assumptions, fabrication and assembly guidance, test procedures, measured results, and known limitations.
• Plan and execute board bring-up and RF validation using appropriate laboratory equipment, compare measured performance with simulation and product data, and drive corrective actions when results do not align.
• Develop, implement, and support customer technical design-in engagement strategies.
• Directly support customers in using Nuvotronics products, including working with customer engineering, PCB layout, manufacturing, and assembly teams to resolve integration and bring-up questions.
• Monitors and analyzes technical activity against goals.
• Develops and maintains contacts with customers.
• Develops technical information used for new business proposals, product specifications, statements of work and systems requirements.
• Recommend application and/or modification of products to satisfy customer requirements.
• Confers with customer technical representatives and management to determine and interpret customer requirements.
• Keeps track of potential sales opportunities and marketing efforts of competitor firms.
• Assist customers with schematic, layout, simulation, component selection, board bring-up, measurement correlation, and RF integration challenges using available design tools.
• Work collaboratively with RF design, mechanical, product, manufacturing, quality, sales, and other internal teams to deliver robust application solutions.

Min Reqs:

• BSEE or related engineering degree required; MSEE preferred, with 3+ years of RF, microwave, mmWave, or RF PCBA design and integration experience.
• Ability to obtain a DOD Security Clearance
• Demonstrated experience with schematic capture and PCB layout review for RF/microwave hardware
• Working knowledge of multilayer PCB stack-ups, controlled impedance, RF materials, grounding, power integrity, thermal design, DFM/DFA/DFT, fabrication tolerances, and assembly processes.
• Hands-on experience bringing up and troubleshooting RF PCBAs using equipment such as vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters, oscilloscopes, and related fixtures.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to travel as required (~10-30%).
• Ability to prioritize work, complete multiple tasks, and work under deadlines.

Preferred:

• Experience with microwave circuit-modeling tools such as MWO or ADS and full-wave electromagnetic simulation tools such as HFSS or CST; ability to correlate simulations with board-level measurements.
• Experience in Defense, SATCOM, RF Products industry is highly desirable.
• Experience in business development/sales to an engineering community highly desirable.
• Experience developing technical hardware specifications through a consultative process with customers.
• Experience producing complete, reusable reference-design documentation and communicating design rules, implementation tradeoffs, measured performance, and integration limits to customers.
• Experience with analytical and automation tools such as MATLAB, Python, or JMP for data analysis, visualization, and test-result processing.

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Cubic Pay Range:

$115,000.00 - $133,000.00 + benefits.

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The Cubic pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

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Worker Type:

Employee

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We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic under applicable law.