RF Software Engineer (Starshield)
SpaceX · Hawthorne, CA · 4 wk ago
On-siteEngineering$125k–$145k/yrFull-time
We need to output HTML fragment with headings for sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Only include sections that have real specific content. We must not repeat job title as heading. Must not include Job ID etc. Remove boilerplate like EEO, legal, etc. Must preserve all substantive info.
We need to parse the posting.
Content:
- Intro paragraph about SpaceX mission, Starshield description, role description. That's "About the role" maybe.
- Responsibilities: list bullet points.
- Basic Qualifications: list.
- Preferred Skills And Experience: list.
- Additional Requirements: includes clearance, drug testing, extended hours.
- COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS: includes Pay range, details about level, differential, long-term incentives, stock, bonuses, medical, vision, dental, 401(k), disability, life insurance, paid parental leave, discounts, vacation, holidays, sick leave.
- ITAR Requirements: citizenship etc.
- Equal Opportunity Employer etc (boilerplate to remove).
We need sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule.
We need to decide what goes where.
"About the role": introductory paragraph(s) describing role, mission, Starshield, team, environment.
"Responsibilities": bullet list of responsibilities.
"Requirements": maybe Basic Qualifications? Or "Requirements" could include Basic Qualifications and Additional Requirements? The instruction: Use headings for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). So we have separate Requirements and Qualifications and Skills. Likely:
- Requirements: Basic Qualifications (must have).
- Qualifications: maybe Preferred Skills And Experience? Or could be "Preferred Qualifications". But they said Qualifications as a heading. Could put Preferred Skills And Experience under Qualifications.
- Skills: maybe the list of skills under Preferred Skills And Experience? But we already used that. Could separate: Skills: list of specific technical skills (e.g., experience with RF test equipment, antennas, etc.) while Qualifications: education/experience requirements. However they said "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we might combine.
We need to include sections only when posting has real specific content.
We have content for About the role, Responsibilities, Basic Qualifications (Requirements), Preferred Skills And Experience (could be Skills or Qualifications), Additional Requirements (maybe part of Requirements), Compensation and Benefits (Pay and Benefits). Schedule: not mentioned explicitly; no schedule info besides "extended hours and weekends as needed". That could be considered Schedule? Might be considered under Additional Requirements. There's no explicit schedule like shift, remote, etc. So we should not create a Schedule section because no specific schedule content. Similarly, Benefits: we have details. Pay: we have pay range.
Thus sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements (Basic Qualifications + Additional Requirements?), Skills (Preferred Skills And Experience), Pay, Benefits.
We could also have Qualifications separate from Requirements but we might combine to avoid thin sections. However they gave list of possible headings; we can choose to include only those with content.
Let's decide:
- About the role: intro paragraphs.
- Responsibilities: bullet list.
- Requirements: Basic Qualifications (bullet list) plus Additional Requirements (clearance, drug testing, extended hours). Could be separate but we can combine.
- Skills: Preferred Skills And Experience (bullet list).
- Pay: compensation details (pay range, level, differential, stock, bonuses).
- Benefits: medical, vision, dental, 401(k), disability, life insurance, parental leave, discounts, vacation, holidays, sick leave.
We must not include boilerplate like ITAR, EEO, etc. Remove those.
We must preserve all substantive information: So we need to keep ITAR? It's a requirement for eligibility (citizenship). That is substantive. Should we keep it? It's under "ITAR Requirements". It's a requirement for applicant. That is substantive. Should we include it under Requirements or a separate section? Since we have Requirements heading, we can include ITAR there. The instruction: remove cookie/navigation/legal/EEO/equal-opportunity/scam-warning boilerplate, duplicated lines, and application instructions. ITAR is not boilerplate; it's a substantive requirement. So we keep it.
Similarly, "Additional Requirements" about clearance, drug testing, extended hours is substantive.
Thus Requirements section will contain:
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or other engineering discipline
- 1+ years of professional development experience in C/C++ or Python
- 1+ years of professional experience with radio test equipment such as spectrum analyzers, vector signal analyzers, vector signal generators, and network analyzers
- 1+ years of professional RF experience with antennas or communication systems
- ITAR: Must be U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or eligible for required authorizations.
- Additional Requirements: Active TS/SCI clearance or ability to obtain and maintain one; if active clearance, subject to pre-employment drug and random drug and alcohol testing; must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
We could also include "Active clearance may provide opportunity..." but that's part of Additional Requirements.
Now Skills section: Preferred Skills And Experience bullet list:
- Master's degree in electrical engineering or other engineering discipline
- Experience with testing both active and passive RF devices such as filters, amplifiers, mixers, and upconverters/downconverters
- Experience with common RF concepts such as gain, linearity, P1dB, ACLR, EVM, PAE, S-parameters, and input/output matching
- Experience with software design principles, software architecture, design patterns, and unit/integration testing methodology
- Experience with environmental test methodologies and equipment such as thermal chambers and temperature forcing systems
- Experience troubleshooting interactions between software and hardware such as network devices and lab instrumentation
- Experience using Windows and Linux operating systems
- Experience with configuration management and version control software
Now Pay section: details:
- Pay range: RF Software Engineer/Level I: $125,000.00 - $145,000.00 per year
- RF Software Engineer/Level II: $145,000.00 - $175,000.00 per year
- Actual level and base salary determined case-by-case based on job-related knowledge and skills, education, experience.
- Those with an active clearance will receive a 10% differential, up to an additional $20,000 annually, once officially briefed into a classified program.
- Base salary is just one part of total rewards package; may also be eligible for long-term incentives (company stock or long-term cash awards), potential discretionary bonuses, ability to purchase additional stock at discount through Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
Now Benefits section: list:
- Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage
- Access to a 401(k) retirement plan
- Short and long-term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid parental leave
- Various other discounts and perks
- 3 weeks of paid vacation
- Eligible for 10 or more paid holidays per year
- Paid sick leave pursuant to Company policy which satisfies or exceeds legal requirements.
We might also mention "access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage" etc.
Now About the role: we need to capture the introductory paragraphs:
"SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars. RF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (STARSHIELD) Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. As a RF software engineer on the Starshield team, you will be working on advanced development programs in support of US National Security. You will work with a team of RF engineers, DSP engineers, software engineers, hardware engineers and end users to design and build RF capabilities for proliferated communications and remote sensing in low earth orbit. You will work in a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment, where we are exploring unsolved problems and applying the SpaceX mindset of iterating rapidly to go from design and demo to operational capability at lightning pace."
We should not repeat the job title as a heading; we already have About the role heading. The intro includes the job title line "RF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (STARSHIELD)" but that's part of the content; we can keep it as part of the paragraph. It's okay.
Now Responsibilities bullet list:
- Drive program-level decisions on RF system designs
- Research novel solutions for unique large-scale satellite RF systems
- Design, build, validate, and automate RF test benches for full characterization of custom RF designs, often involving vector network analyzers (VNA), vector signal generators (VSG), vector signal analyzers (VSA), spectrum analyzers, load pulls, RF power meters, high-speed oscilloscopes, and other common lab equipment
- Design and build modular, scalable RF test infrastructure and test automation sequences in Python and C++ to support design validation, qualification, and production
- Work in close collaboration with hardware, FPGA, DSP, and software engineers to design and validate RF systems
- Create electromagnetic simulation models of hardware to design and evaluate performance
Now we need to output HTML fragment only, no /, no markdown fences.
We'll produce something like:
for sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Only include sections that have real specific content. We must not repeat job title as heading. Must not include Job ID etc. Remove boilerplate like EEO, legal, etc. Must preserve all substantive info.
We need to parse the posting.
Content:
- Intro paragraph about SpaceX mission, Starshield description, role description. That's "About the role" maybe.
- Responsibilities: list bullet points.
- Basic Qualifications: list.
- Preferred Skills And Experience: list.
- Additional Requirements: includes clearance, drug testing, extended hours.
- COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS: includes Pay range, details about level, differential, long-term incentives, stock, bonuses, medical, vision, dental, 401(k), disability, life insurance, paid parental leave, discounts, vacation, holidays, sick leave.
- ITAR Requirements: citizenship etc.
- Equal Opportunity Employer etc (boilerplate to remove).
We need sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule.
We need to decide what goes where.
"About the role": introductory paragraph(s) describing role, mission, Starshield, team, environment.
"Responsibilities": bullet list of responsibilities.
"Requirements": maybe Basic Qualifications? Or "Requirements" could include Basic Qualifications and Additional Requirements? The instruction: Use headings for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). So we have separate Requirements and Qualifications and Skills. Likely:
- Requirements: Basic Qualifications (must have).
- Qualifications: maybe Preferred Skills And Experience? Or could be "Preferred Qualifications". But they said Qualifications as a heading. Could put Preferred Skills And Experience under Qualifications.
- Skills: maybe the list of skills under Preferred Skills And Experience? But we already used that. Could separate: Skills: list of specific technical skills (e.g., experience with RF test equipment, antennas, etc.) while Qualifications: education/experience requirements. However they said "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we might combine.
We need to include sections only when posting has real specific content.
We have content for About the role, Responsibilities, Basic Qualifications (Requirements), Preferred Skills And Experience (could be Skills or Qualifications), Additional Requirements (maybe part of Requirements), Compensation and Benefits (Pay and Benefits). Schedule: not mentioned explicitly; no schedule info besides "extended hours and weekends as needed". That could be considered Schedule? Might be considered under Additional Requirements. There's no explicit schedule like shift, remote, etc. So we should not create a Schedule section because no specific schedule content. Similarly, Benefits: we have details. Pay: we have pay range.
Thus sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements (Basic Qualifications + Additional Requirements?), Skills (Preferred Skills And Experience), Pay, Benefits.
We could also have Qualifications separate from Requirements but we might combine to avoid thin sections. However they gave list of possible headings; we can choose to include only those with content.
Let's decide:
- About the role: intro paragraphs.
- Responsibilities: bullet list.
- Requirements: Basic Qualifications (bullet list) plus Additional Requirements (clearance, drug testing, extended hours). Could be separate but we can combine.
- Skills: Preferred Skills And Experience (bullet list).
- Pay: compensation details (pay range, level, differential, stock, bonuses).
- Benefits: medical, vision, dental, 401(k), disability, life insurance, parental leave, discounts, vacation, holidays, sick leave.
We must not include boilerplate like ITAR, EEO, etc. Remove those.
We must preserve all substantive information: So we need to keep ITAR? It's a requirement for eligibility (citizenship). That is substantive. Should we keep it? It's under "ITAR Requirements". It's a requirement for applicant. That is substantive. Should we include it under Requirements or a separate section? Since we have Requirements heading, we can include ITAR there. The instruction: remove cookie/navigation/legal/EEO/equal-opportunity/scam-warning boilerplate, duplicated lines, and application instructions. ITAR is not boilerplate; it's a substantive requirement. So we keep it.
Similarly, "Additional Requirements" about clearance, drug testing, extended hours is substantive.
Thus Requirements section will contain:
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or other engineering discipline
- 1+ years of professional development experience in C/C++ or Python
- 1+ years of professional experience with radio test equipment such as spectrum analyzers, vector signal analyzers, vector signal generators, and network analyzers
- 1+ years of professional RF experience with antennas or communication systems
- ITAR: Must be U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or eligible for required authorizations.
- Additional Requirements: Active TS/SCI clearance or ability to obtain and maintain one; if active clearance, subject to pre-employment drug and random drug and alcohol testing; must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
We could also include "Active clearance may provide opportunity..." but that's part of Additional Requirements.
Now Skills section: Preferred Skills And Experience bullet list:
- Master's degree in electrical engineering or other engineering discipline
- Experience with testing both active and passive RF devices such as filters, amplifiers, mixers, and upconverters/downconverters
- Experience with common RF concepts such as gain, linearity, P1dB, ACLR, EVM, PAE, S-parameters, and input/output matching
- Experience with software design principles, software architecture, design patterns, and unit/integration testing methodology
- Experience with environmental test methodologies and equipment such as thermal chambers and temperature forcing systems
- Experience troubleshooting interactions between software and hardware such as network devices and lab instrumentation
- Experience using Windows and Linux operating systems
- Experience with configuration management and version control software
Now Pay section: details:
- Pay range: RF Software Engineer/Level I: $125,000.00 - $145,000.00 per year
- RF Software Engineer/Level II: $145,000.00 - $175,000.00 per year
- Actual level and base salary determined case-by-case based on job-related knowledge and skills, education, experience.
- Those with an active clearance will receive a 10% differential, up to an additional $20,000 annually, once officially briefed into a classified program.
- Base salary is just one part of total rewards package; may also be eligible for long-term incentives (company stock or long-term cash awards), potential discretionary bonuses, ability to purchase additional stock at discount through Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
Now Benefits section: list:
- Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage
- Access to a 401(k) retirement plan
- Short and long-term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid parental leave
- Various other discounts and perks
- 3 weeks of paid vacation
- Eligible for 10 or more paid holidays per year
- Paid sick leave pursuant to Company policy which satisfies or exceeds legal requirements.
We might also mention "access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage" etc.
Now About the role: we need to capture the introductory paragraphs:
"SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars. RF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (STARSHIELD) Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. As a RF software engineer on the Starshield team, you will be working on advanced development programs in support of US National Security. You will work with a team of RF engineers, DSP engineers, software engineers, hardware engineers and end users to design and build RF capabilities for proliferated communications and remote sensing in low earth orbit. You will work in a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment, where we are exploring unsolved problems and applying the SpaceX mindset of iterating rapidly to go from design and demo to operational capability at lightning pace."
We should not repeat the job title as a heading; we already have About the role heading. The intro includes the job title line "RF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (STARSHIELD)" but that's part of the content; we can keep it as part of the paragraph. It's okay.
Now Responsibilities bullet list:
- Drive program-level decisions on RF system designs
- Research novel solutions for unique large-scale satellite RF systems
- Design, build, validate, and automate RF test benches for full characterization of custom RF designs, often involving vector network analyzers (VNA), vector signal generators (VSG), vector signal analyzers (VSA), spectrum analyzers, load pulls, RF power meters, high-speed oscilloscopes, and other common lab equipment
- Design and build modular, scalable RF test infrastructure and test automation sequences in Python and C++ to support design validation, qualification, and production
- Work in close collaboration with hardware, FPGA, DSP, and software engineers to design and validate RF systems
- Create electromagnetic simulation models of hardware to design and evaluate performance
Now we need to output HTML fragment only, no /, no markdown fences.
We'll produce something like:
About the role
...
Responsibilities
- ... ...
Requirements
- ... ...
Skills
- ... ...
Pay
...
Benefits
- ... ...
tags. Could be one
with line breaks? Better to keep as one
but could split into two
for readability. The instruction: use
for prose. So we can have multiple
tags. We'll do:
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.
Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. As a RF software engineer on the Starshield team, you will be working on advanced development programs in support of US National Security. You will work with a team of RF engineers, DSP engineers, software engineers, hardware engineers and end users to design and build RF capabilities for proliferated communications and remote sensing in low earth orbit. You will work in a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment, where we are exploring unsolved problems and applying the SpaceX mindset of iterating rapidly to go from design and demo to operational capability at lightning pace.
Now Responsibilities- with each bullet.
Now Requirements
- with bullet points.
We need to include ITAR as bullet.
We need to include Additional Requirements bullet maybe separate bullet.
We could combine: "Active TS/SCI clearance or ability to obtain and maintain one; if active clearance, subject to pre-employment drug and random drug and alcohol testing; must be willing to