RF Test & Automation Engineer

Who is Elve?

Elve, Inc. is a deep-tech startup with a factory in Davis, CA & Customer Experience center in San Francisco, CA, specializing in designing and manufacturing high-efficiency, lightweight millimeter-wave and near-THz RF power amplifiers. Our technology enables high-performance wireless communications for applications ranging from satellite communications to advanced terrestrial systems.

We are looking for engineers to join our team and help develop and manufacture cutting-edge RF technology. If you are passionate about RF systems, test automation, hardware, and building tools that directly improve how products are tested and manufactured, we want to hear from you.

Job Description

The RF Test Automation Engineer will develop, automate, and maintain RF test procedures and the software frameworks used to support production and engineering testing.

This role requires a strong foundation in RF testing combined with the ability to develop and maintain production-quality software. The engineer will translate engineering requirements into useful and technically valid RF test procedures, automate those procedures within reusable test frameworks, and support their continued use and improvement across production.

This is a highly hands-on role. The ideal candidate is comfortable working across RF hardware, test instrumentation, software, and production systems and troubleshooting issues that may span all of those areas.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop RF test procedures based on engineering and product requirements
• Automate RF testing using reusable and maintainable software frameworks
• Develop and maintain test software, including data acquisition, processing, logging, and reporting
• Interface with RF test equipment such as VNAs, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, power meters, and related instrumentation
• Troubleshoot issues spanning test software, instrumentation, test setups, and RF hardware
• Partner with RF, test, manufacturing, and product engineers to improve test coverage, repeatability, and throughput
• Implement appropriate software debugging, logging, error handling, and version control practices
• Prepare for and participate in live customer product demonstrations
• Document test methods, software, and results clearly for engineering and production users

Required Qualifications

• Strong understanding of RF fundamentals and common RF parameters, including S-parameters, gain, output power, noise power, compression, and linearity
• Hands-on experience using RF test equipment such as vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, and vector signal generators
• Experience with object-oriented programming in Python and/or C++
• Experience using version control systems such as Git
• Understanding of software debugging, logging, and error-handling practices
• Ability to troubleshoot problems spanning software, instrumentation, and RF hardware
• Ability to translate engineering requirements into practical and repeatable test procedures
• Strong communication and technical documentation skills
• Comfortable working directly with hardware and production test systems in a hands-on environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing and automating RF test routines from engineering requirements
• Experience with RF instrument automation using SCPI, VISA, or similar interfaces
• Experience with VNA calibration and de-embedding techniques
• Experience developing and maintaining data acquisition, processing, and reporting frameworks
• Understanding of RF linearity metrics such as EVM, NPR, ACPR, and C/3IM
• Experience with high-power RF testing
• Experience with millimeter-wave RF systems
• Background in RF systems, signal processing, RF design, or RF data analysis
• Experience with environmental or qualification testing
• 2+ years of relevant engineering experience in a commercial, laboratory, or production environment

Benefits Include:

• The salary range for this position is $85,000 to $150,000 annually
• Health benefits (medical, dental, vision)
• Vacation
• A taste of the start-up life
• Exposure to cutting-edge technology in vacuum electronics, materials science, and additive manufacturing

What it’s like to work at Elve

We are an expanding team, on a mission to bring the next generation of high-speed wireless connectivity to a billion people worldwide. That kind of impact is not going to be achieved with incremental improvements- we are gunning for orders of magnitude advances in production capability, cost, size, and power in the mm-wave RF amplifier market. We work really hard, make sure we get good sleep, we handle conflict intentionally, and we expect great things from each other.