Senior RF Antenna Design Engineer

About You and The Role

Zipline is seeking a Senior Antenna Design Engineer to lead the design, integration, and validation of antenna systems for our autonomous aircraft, ground infrastructure, and supporting products.

You will own antenna performance from early architecture and simulation through hardware integration, regulatory certification, manufacturing, and field deployment. You will work on electrically and mechanically constrained platforms where antenna performance must be balanced against aerodynamics, structural requirements, thermal constraints, industrial design, reliability, cost, and manufacturability.

This role requires strong electromagnetic fundamentals, practical antenna development experience, and the ability to turn ambiguous system requirements into robust production hardware. You will collaborate closely with RF, electrical, mechanical, embedded, systems, flight test, manufacturing, reliability, and regulatory teams.

What You'll Do

• Own antenna architecture, design, simulation, prototyping, integration, and validation for airborne and ground-based products.
• Develop antennas and RF structures across technologies such as cellular, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ISM, telemetry, ADSB, UAT, command-and-control, and other licensed or unlicensed bands.
• Translate communication, navigation, regulatory, and system-level requirements into antenna specifications and verification plans.
• Perform electromagnetic simulations using tools such as Ansys HFSS, CST Studio Suite, Altair FEKO, or equivalent platforms.
• Optimize antenna performance within tightly constrained mechanical environments containing batteries, motors, composites, metals, cables, electronics, and other RF-sensitive structures.
• Conduct antenna measurements, including return loss, impedance, isolation, efficiency, gain, radiation patterns, polarization, and total radiated performance.
• Plan and execute testing in anechoic chambers, outdoor antenna ranges, laboratory environments, and representative operational configurations.
• Characterize antenna performance at the subsystem and complete-vehicle levels, including installed performance and platform-induced effects.
• Develop antenna diversity, MIMO, isolation, coexistence, and placement strategies for systems containing multiple radios.
• Work on antenna arrays, distributed antenna systems, single aperture antennas as well as co-located antenna integrations to deliver on radiated performance, and support cross functionally to deliver: coexistence, desense, regulatory and product level requirements.
• Deliver antenna integration with additional follow through with specific attention to detail to harness integration, serviceability, matching networks, aperture matching, connector strategy and PCB integration.
• Evaluate link performance and collaborate with RF systems engineers on link budgets, propagation assumptions, interference risks, and coverage requirements.
• Investigate RF performance issues using simulation, laboratory measurements, flight-test data, and structured root-cause analysis.
• Design repeatable RF test methods and fixtures for engineering validation, production testing, and supplier qualification.
• Design and implement unique antenna systems and RF harnessing solutions with multi physics demands across thermal, shock, vibe, humidity, mass, and life limits.
• Partner with mechanical and industrial design teams to develop antenna solutions that meet aerodynamic, environmental, structural, and packaging requirements.
• Work with manufacturing and suppliers to establish antenna specifications, tolerances, inspection criteria, calibration methods, and production controls.
• Support regulatory and carrier certification activities, including FCC, CE, ISED, cellular carrier, SAR, spurious-emissions, and other applicable testing.
• Perform technical reviews, communicate design tradeoffs, and document decisions, risks, test results, and lessons learned.
• Mentor other engineers and help establish antenna-development tools, processes, standards, and technical roadmaps for the RF organization.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, applied physics, electromagnetics, or a related technical field.
• Typically 7 or more years of professional experience developing antennas or closely related RF hardware for production systems.
• Strong understanding of electromagnetic theory, antenna fundamentals, transmission lines, impedance matching, polarization, coupling, radiation efficiency, and propagation.
• Demonstrated experience taking at least one antenna system from concept through integration, verification, and production.
• Experience designing antennas for mechanically constrained products such as aircraft, drones, robotics, automotive systems, mobile devices, wearables, or IoT products.
• Proficiency with a full-wave electromagnetic simulation tool such as HFSS, CST, FEKO, or an equivalent platform.
• Hands-on experience with vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, RF power meters, and antenna-measurement systems.
• Experience interpreting three-dimensional radiation patterns, chamber data, efficiency measurements, link-test results, and statistical production data.
• Working knowledge of RF PCB design, feed networks, matching circuits, connectors, cables, grounding, shielding, and electromagnetic compatibility.
• Ability to analyze complex system interactions and isolate issues spanning antenna, radio, electrical, mechanical, embedded, and environmental domains.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to multidisciplinary stakeholders.
• Ability to operate with significant autonomy, prioritize effectively, and drive technically complex programs to completion.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in electrical engineering, electromagnetics, applied physics, or a related field.
• Experience designing antennas for unmanned aircraft, aerospace platforms, autonomous vehicles, or safety-critical systems.
• Experience with cellular antenna systems, including LTE, 5G, carrier aggregation, MIMO, and over-the-air performance.
• Experience with high-accuracy or multiband GNSS antenna systems.
• Experience with conformal antennas, phased arrays, electronically steered antennas, or direction-finding systems.
• Familiarity with composite structures, carbon fiber, radomes, environmental sealing, and antenna-material characterization.
• Experience with RF coexistence, desense, intermodulation, passive intermodulation, and electromagnetic compatibility.
• Familiarity with scripting or data-analysis tools such as Python, MATLAB, or equivalent software.
• Experience developing automated antenna-measurement, simulation, optimization, or test-data-analysis workflows.
• Knowledge of regulatory requirements and test methods relevant to airborne, cellular, intentional-radiator, and international products.
• Experience working directly with antenna suppliers, contract manufacturers, test laboratories, and certification bodies.
• Familiarity with design-for-manufacturing, tolerance analysis, reliability testing, and high-volume production processes.

What Success Looks Like

• Establish a clear understanding of Zipline’s existing antenna architectures, RF platforms, operating environments, and key performance risks.
• Take technical ownership of one or more antenna-development programs.
• Deliver antenna systems for real products at scale.
• Design, fabricate and productionize antenna systems to operate in global markets around the world to support ziplines global footprint.
• Deliver antenna designs that meet installed RF performance, mechanical, reliability, regulatory, and manufacturing requirements.
• Improve the correlation between simulation, laboratory testing, vehicle-level testing, and field performance.
• Create reusable design practices, measurement methods, and analysis tools that increase the speed and quality of future antenna programs.
• Help develop the long-term antenna technology roadmap required to support Zipline’s

Why Join Zipline’s RF Team?

Zipline presents an antenna environment unlike a conventional consumer or telecommunications product. Our systems operate in three-dimensional space, travel through changing propagation and interference environments, and must maintain reliable wireless connectivity while meeting strict size, weight, power, aerodynamic, safety, and regulatory constraints.

You will have the opportunity to move between electromagnetic theory, hands-on hardware development, full-system testing, manufacturing, and real-world operations. The antenna systems you develop will directly enable autonomous logistics at global scale and help deliver products that matter to people when and where they need them.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - $250,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!