About the role
Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.
Mission
Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.
What you’ll do
- Design, build, and fly RF and communications systems for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft
- Own RF subsystems end to end: architecture, link budgets, component selection, integration, test, and flight validation
- Design and integrate radios, antennas, RF front ends, and data links for LOS and BLOS operation
- Drive RF performance through analysis, simulation, bench testing, and flight data
- Lead EMI/EMC mitigation across avionics, power, and payload systems
- Work closely with avionics, GNC, electrical, mechanical, and software teams to deliver robust flight communications
- Support integration, production bring-up, and flight operations in the desert
What we’re looking for
- 2+ years designing and deploying real RF systems for aerospace, defense, UAVs, or similarly demanding environments
- Strong fundamentals in RF theory, electromagnetics, and communications systems
- Experience with link budgets, antenna design or selection, RF propagation, and system-level trade studies
- Hands-on experience with RF test equipment (spectrum analyzers, VNAs, signal generators, power meters)
- Experience debugging RF systems in the field, not just in simulation
- Comfort working from first principles and validating performance through test and flight data
