DevOps Senior RF Systems Engineer

At Viasat, the work you do helps people stay connected in ways that matter, from everyday moments to critical missions across air, land, sea, and space.

We’re a place for people who are curious, bold, and motivated by meaningful work. Here, you'll have the opportunity to make an impact, explore new possibilities, and grow your career in ways that align with your interests and goals. When you're ready to take on something new, you'll find leaders who support your development and help you turn your ambition into action.

An experienced individual contributor within P&CSE, the Senior RF Systems Engineer delivers complex hands-on technical work across the satellite ground station engineering lifecycle with a high degree of autonomy. This is a purely technical role with no people management responsibilities and no direct reports. The postholder designs, integrates, and tests earth station RF systems; contributes to DiFi (VITA 49) and RFoIP programmes; deploys cloud-based (AWS / GCP) signal processing workloads; maintains DevOps pipelines and IaC modules; and applies AI tools to engineering workflows. The role includes participation in the P&CSE oncall rota. Candidates must be willing and able to fulfil this requirement as a condition of employment. 

• Perform detailed RF system design and analysis: link budgets, G/T, EIRP, linearity, antenna system characterisation across L/S/C/Ku/Ka/Q/V bands. 
• Plan, execute, and document FAT, SAT, and IOT test campaigns for new and upgraded earth station RF systems.
• Contribute to DiFi (VITA 49) digitiser chain design, validation, and interoperability testing.
• Contribute to RFoIP encapsulation, QoS, PTP synchronisation, and SDR modem integration activities.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipeline stages, IaC modules (Ansible/Terraform), and automated RF test scripts.
• Deploy and support containerised RF signal processing workloads on AWS EKS or GCP GKE.
• Contribute to cloud RF data pipelines using AWS Kinesis / GCP Pub/Sub and post-pass analysis via Athena / BigQuery.
• Apply AI/ML tools to engineering workflows: LLMs for documentation, anomaly detection on RF telemetry, AI-assisted simulation.
• Provide third-line RF support to Operations and NOC, including on-call rota participation.
• Produce and maintain engineering documentation (ICDs, test plans, acceptance reports) to P&CSE quality standards.
• Travel to earth station sites and supplier facilities as required by programme activities.

• 8-12 years ground station system design, integration, and test experience.
• Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering or Telecommunications.
• Proven hands-on RF expertise across multiple frequency bands with strong link budget and test skills.
• Working knowledge of DiFi/VITA 49, RFoIP, DevOps CI/CD, AWS/GCP, and AI engineering tools.
• Seeking a technical individual contributor role with no people management responsibility. 

• Fully available for P&CSE on-call rota and international travel. Based in or able to commute to London.

Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic. If you would like to request an accommodation on the basis of disability for completing this on-line application, please click here.