Senior RF Hardware Engineer in Bristol

We are building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience. At Rowden, we design and integrate advanced systems that sense, connect, and protect data in challenging environments where quick decisions are vital. Our solutions use intelligent automation to enhance speed and efficiency and are built to be reliable and straightforward for critical operations in remote or high-pressure settings.

Headquartered in Bristol (UK), we combine modern engineering methods with cutting-edge commercial technology to create adaptable, mission-critical systems. We focus on solving the tough challenges that others overlook, ensuring our customers can operate effectively in an ever-changing world.

As part of this journey, we are expanding our RF hardware capability to design and deliver advanced wireless sensing and communication systems across Research and Product. This function designs and delivers RF and mixed-signal hardware platforms that enable sensing, communications, and signal processing in demanding environments. These systems combine analogue RF front-end design, high-speed data conversion, and software-defined radio architectures to create adaptable and high-performance sensing platforms.

As a Senior RF Hardware Engineer, you will design and deliver the analogue and mixed-signal hardware that underpins these systems. You will work across the full RF signal chain, from antenna interfaces and RF front-end design through to ADC/DAC integration and SDR platform bring-up. This is a hands-on engineering role working closely with RF, FPGA, embedded software, and machine learning engineers to translate system requirements into robust hardware implementations. You will play a key role in developing RF systems that are reliable, efficient and deployable in complex operational environments.

While this role offers hybrid working options, it requires a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ, with occasional travel to customer sites. Candidates must be willing to obtain UK National Security Vetting clearance, with SC required and DV desirable.

Key areas of responsibility

• Designing RF front-end architectures including amplification stages, filtering, frequency conversion, and signal conditioning.
• Designing and owning RF and mixed-signal hardware from concept and schematic capture through to PCB implementation and hardware bring-up.
• Developing mixed-signal hardware integrating high-speed ADCs, DACs and associated clocking architectures.
• Designing multi-layer RF PCBs, ensuring strong RF performance, signal integrity, grounding strategies, shielding and manufacturability.
• Selecting and integrating RF components including amplifiers, mixers, filters, oscillators, clocking systems and converters.
• Bringing up new RF hardware platforms and validating RF performance using appropriate laboratory measurement equipment.
• Debugging and optimising RF signal chains across analogue and mixed-signal domains.
• Supporting integration of RF hardware with FPGA-based SDR platforms and embedded processing systems.
• Working closely with signal processing and FPGA engineers to ensure RF hardware supports system-level performance requirements.
• Producing high-quality design documentation, schematics and design reviews.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

• Strong experience designing RF and analogue hardware for wireless or radio systems.
• Experience designing RF signal chains including amplification, filtering, mixing and gain control.
• Strong understanding of the full RF signal chain, from antenna interface and RF front-end through to ADC/DAC integration and digital processing pipelines.
• Experience integrating high-speed ADC and DAC devices into RF systems.
• Experience designing multi-layer mixed-signal PCBs including schematic capture and layout.
• Experience with PCB design tools such as KiCad, Altium Designer or similar, with a preference for candidates comfortable developing complete board designs.
• Strong understanding of RF PCB layout principles including impedance control, grounding strategies, isolation, return paths and signal integrity.
• Experience bringing up new RF hardware platforms and diagnosing real-world performance issues across analogue, mixed-signal and digital domains.
• Practical experience using RF laboratory equipment such as spectrum analysers, vector network analysers, signal generators and oscilloscopes.
• Ability to analyse RF system performance including noise figure, gain, dynamic range and bandwidth.
• Experience working collaboratively with RF, FPGA, embedded software and systems engineers.

Highly Desirable Experience

• Experience developing hardware for Software Defined Radio systems.
• Familiarity with RF simulation tools and signal chain modelling.
• Experience integrating RF hardware with FPGA-based platforms such as Zynq or similar architectures.
• Understanding of digital signal processing concepts relevant to RF systems.
• Experience designing hardware for low-SWaP or edge-deployed systems.
• Experience developing hardware used in sensing, electronic warfare, or communications systems.

Key Attributes

• Problem-solver: Able to troubleshoot and resolve complex issues pragmatically and efficiently.
• Systems thinker: Comfortable reasoning about interconnected RF, mixed-signal and digital systems.
• Detail-oriented: Maintains high standards and adherence to engineering best practices.
• Adaptable and self-motivated: Learns quickly and continuously develops technical capability.
• Collaborative: Works effectively across disciplines, sharing knowledge openly.
• Continuous improvement mindset: Proactively identifies opportunities to improve systems, processes, and ways of working.
• Agile mindset: Applies Agile principles pragmatically, facilitating alignment, prioritisation, and collaboration.

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are! We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants. Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible. Finally, if you feel that you don't meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we'd still love to hear from you!