RF Engineer

About Tachyon

Particle accelerators sit at the center of some of humanity's most important industries. They are used to test spacecraft electronics, manufacture medical isotopes, inspect critical infrastructure, advance fusion research, probe new materials, and explore fundamental physics. Yet despite their importance, accelerator technology has remained largely confined to national laboratories, universities, and bespoke (but enormous) government programs. Tachyon Industrial was founded to change that.

We are building a High Energy Physics Prime, the first venture-scale industrial accelerator company: a vertically integrated business focused on designing, manufacturing, and operating the next generation of particle accelerator infrastructure. First to use them for testing electronics, but eventually to use them to produce antimatter to build propulsion systems to take us beyond low earth orbit.

The Role

We're looking for an RF engineer to lead cavity design and tuning for our first machine and the machines that follow it. You'll own the electromagnetic design of our RF structures — RFQ, DTL, IH/CH cavities — from modeling through fabrication-ready design, cold testing, and tuning. This is high-power, normal-conducting RF for a real machine on a real timeline, not a paper study.

You'll work closely with our national lab partner and with the rest of the founding engineering team on everything that touches the RF structures: frequency selection, mode separation, field flatness, coupling, and the practical compromises that come from building fast with a small team.

What you'll do

• Design and simulate RF cavity structures (RFQ, DTL, IH/CH, or similar) using electromagnetic codes (e.g., CST, HFSS, Superfish/Poisson, COMSOL)

• Drive design decisions on frequency, geometry, and mode structure against beam dynamics, fabrication, and cost constraints

• Lead low-power RF (bead-pull, field flatness) and high-power conditioning and tuning of fabricated structures

• Work with machinists and vendors on tolerances, brazing/welding approaches, and additive manufacturing options for RF structures

• Troubleshoot multipacting, detuning, and other high-power RF failure modes

• Collaborate with the power systems engineer and beam physicist to close the loop between cavity design, RF source requirements, and beam performance

• Help establish RF design and test practices as one of the first RF hires at the company

What we're looking for

• BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a closely related field

• Demonstrated experience designing, simulating, and/or tuning high-power RF cavities (linac structures, resonant cavities, or comparable)

• High competence: you have strong RF/EM fundamentals backed by hands-on design and test experience, not just simulation

• High agency: you are comfortable owning a structure's design end-to-end and identifying what needs solving before being asked

• Moves fast, with urgency: you treat the schedule as real, not aspirational; default to shipping a working answer this week over a perfect one next quarter, and don't let a problem sit idle waiting for someone else to unblock it

• Creativity under constraint: you find workable solutions when budget, schedule, or fabrication capability limit the "textbook" answer

• Ambition: you want to to work on hard, consequential hardware problems

• A collaborative style: this is a small team so how you work with others matters as much as what you build alone

• Courage paired with judgment: you are willing to make and own design calls, but you know when to test, measure, or ask first

Nice to have (not required)

• Experience with normal-conducting linac structures specifically (RFQ, DTL, IH/CH)

• Superconducting (SRF) cavity experience is a plus, though not required

• Experience with multipacting analysis, bead-pull measurements, or high-power conditioning

• Background at a national lab, accelerator facility, or hardware startup

Why Tachyon

You'd own the RF heart of a machine that's actually getting built — with a real national lab partnership and a real timeline (working machine in 18–24 months). Small team, high ownership, your designs end up in hardware, not just a report.

Our future is in the stars but we won't get there without new physics and machines to tame them. Make your mark at Tachyon on this quest for a more exciting future.