{"id":3463329,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zipline-senior-rf-desense-engineer","title":"Senior RF Desense Engineer","company":{"id":15878,"name":"Zipline","domain":"zipline.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zipline","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":15,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":58,"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"}},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["South San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":160000,"max":260000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":260000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Wi-Fi","optional":false},{"name":"Ansys HFSS","optional":true},{"name":"Keysight ADS","optional":true},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-14T03:36:21Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-15","last_verified_at":"2026-11-02T02:21:43Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":111,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":111},"description":"About Zipline\nZipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. \nOur customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.\nOur system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.\nWe operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.\nAbout You and The Role\nZipline is seeking a Senior RF Desense Engineer to lead the architecture, analysis, mitigation, validation, and long-term improvement of RF desense performance across our autonomous aircraft and ground infrastructure.\nYou will own receiver desense engineering from early system architecture through hardware integration, validation, manufacturing, certification, and field deployment. You will work across wireless platforms supporting 4G LTE, 5G NR, GNSS, Wi-Fi, ADS-B, UAT, Bluetooth, ISM radios, emerging Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, and future air-to-ground communication systems, ensuring receivers maintain robust performance despite increasingly dense RF and electronic environments.\nThis role also owns the end-to-end electromagnetic shielding architecture across Zipline's wireless platforms. You will define shielding strategies spanning RF integrated circuits, front-end modules, connectors, cable harnesses, line-replaceable units (LRUs), subsystem enclosures, and complete products to control both internally generated and externally coupled interference. Working closely with electrical, mechanical, antenna, manufacturing, reliability, and systems teams, you will develop scalable shielding solutions that enable simultaneous operation of multiple high-power transmitters and high-sensitivity receivers-including precision GNSS systems-while meeting aggressive performance, reliability, manufacturability, weight, cost, and product lifetime requirements.\nWhile the primary focus of this role is receiver desense, you will also support broader RF coexistence efforts by contributing to system-level interference analysis, radio scheduling strategies, and multi-radio integration. You will collaborate closely with antenna, RF front-end, electrical, embedded software, systems, mechanical, flight test, manufacturing, reliability, certification, and cloud engineering teams to ensure Zipline's wireless systems perform reliably under real-world operating conditions.\nWhat You'll Do\nOwn RF desense architecture, analysis, mitigation, validation, and production support across Zipline aircraft, docks, droids, Zipping Points, and future autonomous logistics platforms.\nDevelop receiver desense budgets and performance requirements for next-generation wireless platforms.\nIdentify and mitigate receiver sensitivity degradation caused by onboard transmitters, switching power supplies, processors, high-speed digital interfaces, displays, motors, power electronics, and other electronic subsystems.\nAnalyze conducted and radiated interference mechanisms including broadband noise coupling, harmonics, spurious emissions, blocking, intermodulation, passive intermodulation, and electromagnetic compatibility.\nCharacterize RF coupling paths through PCBs, cables, antennas, enclosures, mechanical structures, power systems, and wiring harnesses.\nDevelop practical mitigation strategies including shielding, filtering, grounding, PCB layout optimization, clock management, power supply noise reduction, frequency planning, and antenna isolation improvements.\nDefine RF design guidelines that minimize desense risks early in product development.\nDefine Zipline's end-to-end electromagnetic shielding architecture spanning RF ICs, front-end modules, PCB assemblies, connectors, cable harnesses, LRUs, subsystem enclosures, and complete products.\nDevelop shielding strategies that minimize self-generated and externally coupled RF interference while balancing size, weight, thermal performance, manufacturability, serviceability, reliability, and cost.\nSpecify shielding requirements for RF circuits, mixed-signal electronics, switching power supplies, processors, high-speed digital interfaces, motors, and power electronics to prevent receiver degradation.\nDesign connector and cable interconnect shielding architectures including shield termination, grounding topology, common-mode current control, cable routing, connector selection, and bonding methods to minimize conducted and radiated emissions.\nDevelop subsystem-level shielding strategies defining enclosure construction, gasket selection, aperture control, seam treatment, venting approaches, conductive coatings, and grounding interfaces to achieve predictable electromagnetic isolation.\nLead product-level shielding architecture to ensure emissions from all subsystems remain below receiver susceptibility thresholds while supporting simultaneous operation of multiple transmitters and sensitive receivers.\nDevelop shielding methodologies that enable reliable integration of LTE, 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ADS-B, UAT, ISM radios, telemetry, command-and-control, V2V communications, and future wireless technologies operating concurrently.\nDrive shielding design decisions through simulation, laboratory characterization, near-field scanning, EMI/EMC testing, environmental testing, flight testing, and structured root-cause analysis.\nEstablish shielding design standards, verification methodologies, acceptance criteria, production inspection processes, and long-term design guidelines across Zipline's hardware platforms.\nPartner with mechanical engineering to design lightweight, manufacturable shielding solutions that maintain performance over the full environmental and operational life of the product.\nDefine shielding strategies that protect high-precision GNSS receivers from onboard interference sources, enabling robust positioning performance under simultaneous multi-radio operation and dynamic flight conditions.\nPerform RF system analysis including receiver sensitivity, cascaded noise figure, blocking performance, dynamic range, interference budgeting, and system margin analysis.\nCollaborate closely with RF front-end and antenna engineers to optimize signal chains, antenna placement, installed performance, and isolation.\nSupport PCB layout reviews, grounding strategies, shielding implementation, stack-up definition, and design-for-manufacturing activities.\nDevelop laboratory validation methods using spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, vector signal analyzers, signal generators, near-field probes, OTA chambers, EMI receivers, and conducted RF measurements.\nPlan and execute RF desense characterization, conducted and over-the-air testing, environmental qualification, production verification, and flight testing.\nInvestigate RF performance issues using laboratory measurements, simulation, production data, and structured root-cause analysis.\nSupport RF coexistence activities including multi-radio interference analysis, wireless integration, radio scheduling strategies, and system-level performance optimization.\nSupport regulatory and carrier certification activities including FCC, CE, ISED, PTCRB, GCF, carrier acceptance, aviation certifications, and international wireless and EMC certifications.\nWork closely with suppliers and manufacturing partners to establish RF acceptance criteria, production test methods, calibration procedures, shielding validation processes, and quality controls.\nMentor engineers and help establish RF desense methodologies, shielding architectures, debugging processes, validation standards, and long-term RF performance roadmaps.\nWhat You'll Bring\nBachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical field.\nTypically 7 or more years of professional experience developing RF hardware or wireless communication systems for production products.\nStrong understanding of RF receiver architecture, cascaded receiver performance, sensitivity, noise figure, blocking, dynamic range, selectivity, and receiver optimization.\nDemonstrated experience investigating and resolving RF desense issues within complex wireless systems.\nDemonstrated experience developing shielding architectures from RF circuit level through complete products, including PCB shielding, connector shielding, cable shielding, enclosure design, subsystem isolation, LRU-level shielding, and product-level electromagnetic containment.\nStrong understanding of electromagnetic coupling mechanisms including conducted emissions, radiated emissions, harmonics, intermodulation, passive intermodulation, broadband digital noise, common-mode currents, grounding topology, shielding effectiveness, enclosure resonance, and practical mitigation techniques.\nExperience designing products that integrate multiple simultaneous wireless technologies including LTE, 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ADS-B, UAT, ISM radios, or other wireless communication systems.\nExperience developing shielding strategies for platforms requiring simultaneous operation of high-power transmitters alongside high-sensitivity receivers, including precision GNSS systems.\nExperience balancing shielding effectiveness with mechanical design, thermal management, manufacturability, environmental robustness, serviceability, and long-term product reliability.\nFamiliarity with multi-radio systems and the interaction between RF front ends, antennas, digital electronics, embedded software, power electronics, and mechanical structures.\nExperience taking RF hardware from concept through integration, verification, certification, and production.\nFamiliarity with RF PCB layout, transmission lines, grounding, shielding, power integrity, signal integrity, and electromagnetic compatibility.\nHands-on experience with spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, vector signal analyzers, signal generators, EMI receivers, power meters, near-field probes, OTA measurement systems, and RF measurement equipment.\nExperience validating shielding effectiveness using near-field scanning, conducted and radiated emissions testing, chamber testing, susceptibility testing, and structured RF debugging techniques.\nStrong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs across multidisciplinary engineering teams.\nAbility to operate independently while driving technically complex RF investigations from concept through production.\nPreferred Qualifications\nMaster's degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering or a related field.\nExperience with autonomous aircraft, robotics, aerospace, automotive, or other highly integrated embedded systems.\nExperience supporting RF coexistence validation for complex multi-radio platforms.\nExperience with cellular carrier certification, PTCRB, GCF, and international cellular deployments.\nFamiliarity with RF simulation tools such as Ke...","description_format":"text","description_chars":16898,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Drones & UAVs","Delivery","Logistics"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-29T14:36:18Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 63 · green card filings: 13","filings_12m":63,"filings_prev_12m":47,"green_card_filings_12m":13,"median_offered_wage_usd":170658,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green 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