Radio Frequency Design Engineer Development Program - Entry Level; Maryland

Responsibilities

Are you someone interested in all things Radio Frequency (RF)? Is your idea of a good time building out a better ham radio? Do you enjoy logical analysis of complex tasks? If so, RF Engineering, a core component capability development activity within NSA, may be for you! NSA's highly technical RF workforce keeps pace with RF advances and enables NSA to address threats to our Nation and our Allies by supporting worldwide Signals Intelligence requirements of our military commanders and national policymakers.

The NSA is seeking talented colleagues to join world class team of analysts, engineers, researchers and developers who work on projects using antenna and receiver design, RF signals analysis, end-to-end system design, and emitter location and direction finding techniques in order to design, develop and deploy advanced survey and collection capabilities to propel our mission. At NSA, RF Engineers develop the technologies, communications and capabilities to maintain our global advantage in both information gathering and national defense.

RF Engineers acquire target signals, condition them for follow-on processing and deliver end-to-end solutions for survey, collection and emitter location and follow on analysis. Use your unique experience and expertise to protect national security interests!

The Radio Frequency Development Program (RFDP) is a three-year full-time paid development program for earlier career RF engineers to develop and expand skills while making meaningful contributions to NSA's mission. This talented group will have the opportunity to take part in customized mentoring, professional development and world-wide travel while sampling a breadth of RF engineering activities. As an RF Engineer, your responsibilities can include:

• Design, build, test and deploy end-to-end RF systems, from the antenna through follow-on processors.
• Design, build, test and deploy communications systems using commercial off the shelf (COTS)/government off the shelf (GOTS) radios, software-defined radios (SDR) and SDR frameworks, as well as field programmable gate array (FPGA) technologies.
• Design, develop, construct, test and maintain hardware and software processing components; typically subsystems of communication, collection, processing or analysis systems.
• Conduct RF site surveys and include results in the design and performance assessments of RF systems.
• Work with and/or lead project teams to satisfy operational requirements for RF systems.
• Analyze results of RF collection in support of national mission requirements
• Lead new advances in RF engineering and push the leading edge of RF communications technologies:
• Antenna theory, design, and fabrication techniques with particular focus on beam-forming technologies
• Modulation (BPSK, QPSK, spread spectrum, etc.), demodulation and signal separation techniques
• Low power, space and cooling environments (including embedded systems)
• Commercial telecommunication standards, protocols and topologies
• Compression and other bandwidth optimization techniques
• RF interference detection and mitigation approaches
• Active RF techniques
• Low probability intercept (LPI) and low probability of detection (LPD) techniques
• Service-oriented architectures

As an Engineering and Physical Science professional, you will use your skills to create the systems and tools that will be used to enhance the operation of intelligence. You will advise, administer and perform scientific projects, such as planning, designing, and constructing specialized equipment, and ensuring adherence to sound engineering and scientific standards and principles. The NSA offers multiple areas of focus for facilities engineers, including computer, architectural, electrical, mechanical, and structural.

In addition, we are seeking skills that include computer design, microelectronics, radio frequency design, and systems engineering. Apply your science and engineering skills to protect the nation. When submitting your application, please ensure that you fully populate all sections of the resume tool with all relevant skills, experience, and education, as the resume entered into the tool will be the…