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Radar Systems Engineer - RF Integration and Test Engineer

Hawthorne, California, United States

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. 

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.

Role Overview:

  • Own RF-centric integration, debug, characterization, and validation for radar hardware, subsystems, and test environments
  • Serve as the Integration and Test team's lead RF engineer across lab, production, chamber, and field environments — ensuring RF chains and test setups produce trustworthy measurements and enable rapid root-cause isolation

Responsibilities:

  • Lead RF debug, characterization, and acceptance for radar hardware — transmit chains, receive chains, antennas, cables, adapters, switches, filters, LNAs, HPAs, SDRs, and frequency conversion stages — including qualifying new components for integration into radar systems
  • Diagnose RF failures by selecting and executing the appropriate measurements — S-parameters, VSWR, noise figure, phase noise, IP3/P1dB, gain/compression, group delay, harmonics/spurs, isolation, and time-domain — and reconcile component-level results against system-level performance such as detection range, sensitivity, and calibration accuracy
  • Choose the right instrument for the failure mode — VNAs, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, phase noise analyzers, power meters, oscilloscopes, noise figure analyzers, and supporting calibration standards.
  • Isolate subtle RF issues such as insertion loss drift, intermittent behavior, phase instability, spurious content, compression effects, LO leakage, and timing/frequency drift
  • Define, configure, and calibrate RF test setups so measurements are repeatable and representative of system operating conditions
  • Determine whether an observed failure is caused by component defect, cable/connector/interface degradation, calibration error, fixture/setup limitation, environmental effect, or broader system interaction — and connect those measurement results back to radar-level performance impacts
  • Partner with systems, hardware, software, firmware, and integration engineers to root-cause failures that span RF, digital, timing, and test-setup boundaries
  • Create RF test procedures, acceptance criteria, troubleshooting guides, and characterization reports that technicians and engineers can execute repeatably
  • Plan and execute phased array testing in our anechoic chamber, including EIRP, transmit and receive beam patterns, sidelobe levels, beam steering accuracy, element-level calibration, and array calibration verification across the operating band
  • Stand up and improve RF portions of test racks, bench setups, and STE environments — including automated or semi-automated RF data collection, analysis, and reporting
  • Work 5 days per week out of our office in Los Angeles (Hawthorne), California.

Minimum Requirements:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, or another related technical field, or equivalent hands-on RF test experience
  • 5+ years of experience in RF test, RF integration, RF validation, radar systems, wireless systems, aerospace/defense systems, or a similar high-performance RF environment
  • Strong hands-on experience using RF test equipment to debug hardware and characterize components and subsystems
  • Strong understanding of RF fundamentals including scattering parameters, impedance matching, gain, noise figure, linearity, compression, isolation, phase stability, and frequency-domain behavior
  • Experience designing and executing RF test plans and interpreting ambiguous measurement results
  • Ability to connect component-level measurements to system-level behavior and performance degradation
  • Strong documentation and communication skills, including the ability to explain RF issues clearly to cross-functional teams
  • High attention to detail and disciplined lab/test practices

Preferred Requirements:

  • Experience with radar systems, phased array systems, EW systems, SATCOM systems, or other advanced RF/microwave platforms
  • Hands-on experience with anechoic chamber testing of phased arrays or antennas, including EIRP measurement, near-field/far-field pattern measurement, beam steering verification, and array calibration techniques
  • Experience diagnosing radar calibration failures or phase-sensitive RF performance issues
  • Familiarity with phase noise measurement methods, equipment selection, and interpretation of results
  • Experience characterizing high-power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, frequency converters, SDRs, antennas, cables, adapters, and passive RF networks
  • Experience with RF/microwave frequencies where test setup quality, cable behavior, connector condition, and calibration technique materially affect results
  • Experience creating custom RF test fixtures, calibration approaches, or troubleshooting methods for nonstandard hardware
  • Familiarity with automation or analysis tools such as Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or instrument control frameworks
  • Experience working in lab and field environments where environmental conditions, handling, and installation quality can affect RF performance
  • Experience working closely with technicians to improve setup quality, measurement repeatability, and fault isolation speed

Why CHAOS?

  • Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
  • Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
  • Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
  • Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
  • Team Growth: 250 employees and counting across 5 global offices
Salary Range: $110,000 - $220,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. 

 

Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.

 

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