Technical Lead RF Design Engineer - Aviation

Overview

We are seeking a full-time Technical Lead RF Design Engineer – Aviation at Garmin’s U.S. headquarters in the Greater Kansas City area. In this role, you will provide technical leadership and design RF circuits and subsystems from UHF through X-band using discrete components and RF modules. You will apply strong analytical, simulation, and test capabilities to deliver safe, reliable, long-lasting performance in safety-critical aviation products. Teaching, mentoring, and developing the RF engineering staff across these technical disciplines are critical responsibilities. This position also carries the expectation of leadership growth, including potential promotion to managing RF engineering teams.

Essential Functions

• Teach, mentor, and develop RF engineers across the full range of RF design, analysis, simulation, and measurement disciplines. Provide practical instruction, constructive design feedback, and challenging assignments that build technical judgment and independent problem-solving capability.
• Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, and test teams; communicate technical risks, priorities, and decisions clearly and fulfill project commitments.
• Develop the leadership skills needed to assume broader responsibility, including potential management of RF engineering teams.
• Lead the architecture, design, and verification of RF receivers, transmitters, power amplifiers, filters, matching networks, and frequency conversion circuits.
• Lead design reviews and document design rationale and verification evidence to support certification, production, and long-term product maintenance.
• Translate product requirements into circuit specifications, performance budgets, design approaches, and verification plans; guide technical decisions and resolve complex design problems.
• Analyze and optimize small-signal and large-signal performance, including gain, noise, sensitivity, dynamic range, linearity, efficiency, phase noise, and spurious responses.
• Apply circuit and electromagnetic simulation to guide schematic and PCB design, accounting for parasitics, coupling, component variation, temperature, and manufacturing constraints.
• Establish rigorous measurement practices and correlate laboratory results with analytical and simulation predictions; identify root causes and guide corrective actions.
• Select components and RF modules for performance, design margin, reliability, manufacturability, and long-term availability.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering or related field, or equivalent education, AND a minimum of 9 years of industry experience in RF circuit and subsystem design.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex RF designs using discrete components and RF modules, supported by analysis, simulation, prototyping, and measured verification.
• Strong command of the following technical disciplines:
• Matching and filters: Impedance, Smith charts, series and shunt matching, lumped and distributed networks, transmission lines, reflections, VSWR, and tradeoffs among Q, network complexity, loss, and bandwidth.
• Receivers: Noise figure and cascaded noise analysis, SNR, noise power and density, decibel quantities, gain distribution, front-end and pre-detector filtering, nonlinear effects, IIP3, frequency conversion, images, mixing spurs, and phase noise.
• Power amplifiers: Power, gain, and efficiency matching; matching structures; amplifier operating classes; conduction angle; load pull; bias; linearity; and thermal performance.
• Frequency and bandwidth: Selection of design techniques and tools from UHF through X-band; effects of wavelength, bandwidth, parasitics, coupling, propagation, obstacles, and reflections on circuit performance and link budgets.
• Modulation and signal processing: Real and complex baseband; amplitude, phase, frequency, and pulse modulation; pulse compression and correlation; and bandwidth, dynamic range, and timing tradeoffs and their implications for receiver and transmitter design.
• Simulation and measurement: Schematic capture, PCB layout review, parametric circuit analysis, 2.5D/3D electromagnetic simulation, RF test equipment, S-parameters and their limitations, de-embedding, phase noise measurements, and correlation of simulation with test results.
• Demonstrated ability to teach these concepts, mentor engineers with differing experience levels, and develop the technical capabilities of an RF engineering staff.
• Demonstrated engineering judgment in reliability, manufacturability, design margin, and sustained product performance.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and technical leadership skills, with the ability and interest to grow into RF team management.

Desired Qualifications

• Post graduate engineering degree in RF design
• Experience designing RF circuitry for aviation or other safety-critical products.
• Experience designing RF integrated circuits using silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technologies.
• Experience using IBIS models to evaluate digital interfaces and their effects on RF performance.
• Experience leading engineering teams, developing technical training, or managing engineers.

Garmin International is an equal opportunity employer.  Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran’s status, age or disability.

This position is eligible for Garmin's benefit program. Details can be found here: Garmin Benefits