DSP / SDR Receiver Engineer — Navigation & Communications (Contract)

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DSP / SDR Receiver Engineer — Navigation & Communications

We are looking for a DSP / SDR engineer to help design, implement, and test software-defined radio receivers for navigation and communications applications. The role is focused on signal-processing receiver design: acquisition, tracking, synchronization, Doppler estimation, timing recovery, and real-time processing of RF signals.

The ideal candidate has hands-on experience building receiver signal-processing chains for GNSS, satellite communications, radar, wireless PHY, spectrum monitoring, or related RF systems.

Responsibilities

Design and implement SDR receiver algorithms for real-world RF signals.

Develop acquisition, tracking, synchronization, and measurement-generation pipelines.

Estimate Doppler, carrier phase, timing, delay, and signal quality metrics.

Work with SDR platforms such as USRP/UHD, GNU Radio, RFSoC, or FPGA-based systems.

Analyze collected RF data and debug receiver performance in lab and field environments.

Evaluate waveform structure, modulation, channel behavior, and receiver implementation tradeoffs.

Support navigation and communications experiments using GNSS, LEO satellite downlinks, or other opportunistic signals.

Desired Background

Strong candidates may come from one or more of the following areas:

GNSS / PNT receiver design

Satellite communications modem or PHY development

Radar signal processing

Electronic warfare, ELINT, SIGINT, or spectrum monitoring

Wireless PHY / LTE / 5G baseband processing

Real-time SDR or FPGA-based signal processing

Useful Skills

SDR development with GNU Radio, USRP/UHD, RFSoC, or FPGA SDR platforms

Real-time DSP implementation

Signal acquisition and tracking loops

PLL / FLL / DLL design

Doppler estimation and tracking

Carrier recovery and timing recovery

Matched filtering and correlation-based detection

Frame synchronization and preamble detection

OFDM, TDMA, DVB-S2/DVB-S2X, or other modem PHY experience

GNSS observables such as pseudorange, carrier phase, Doppler, clocks, and ephemerides

Navigation filtering, EKFs, factor graphs, or INS/GNSS integration

Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or similar signal-processing tools

Ideal Candidate

The strongest candidate combines practical SDR implementation experience with deep receiver signal-processing intuition. They should be comfortable working with imperfect real-world RF data, debugging acquisition/tracking behavior, and turning signal-processing algorithms into working receiver software.

Experience with GNSS, LEO satellite signals, satcom downlinks, radar, EW, SIGINT, or wireless PHY systems is especially relevant.