Senior Engineer: Radio Frequency Interference at National Research Foundation
About the Position
SKA SA has an exciting career opportunity for an experienced Senior Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Engineer to join our Cape Town based team. The successful incumbent will manage the RFI Engineering and RFI Analysis teams.
Minimum education requirement:
SKA SA has an exciting career opportunity for an experienced Senior Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Engineer to join our Cape Town based team. The successful incumbent will manage the RFI Engineering and RFI Analysis teams.
Minimum education requirement:
- BSc or BEng or MSc degree (Preferable) in either Electronic Engineering or Science with a strong Electronic Engineering component
- At least 10 years relevant work experience coupled with a strong Radio Frequency (RF) engineering background
Minimum work experience required:
- 5+ years of relevant experience working within a Radio Frequency and/or software development and/or Electro Magnetic Capability (EMC) environment, preferably within the field of radio astronomy
Desirable additional education, work experience and personal qualities:
- Further education in the following areas would be beneficial: radio frequency engineering; digital hardware and software development; signal processing; data analysis
- Experience in radio astronomy, and particularly radio astronomy measurement systems and the requirements thereof
- Highly motivated and committed
- Thorough and meticulous (problem solving)
- Good communication, presentation, inter-personal and technical writing skills
Duties include:
- Manage the RFI engineering and analysis team which are responsible for the delivery of RFI measurement systems (including backend integration of various hardware; data pipelines, frontend user interfaces, and RFI data archiving), RFI data processing techniques and analysis and various software pipelines and data archiving
- Take responsibility for design, development, management and maintenance of RFI measurement systems suitable for measurement within a radio astronomy environment
- Mentor young professionals and interns
- Manage the rollout of Integrated RFI Monitoring Systems (IRMS), including input to system design, procurement, installation and integration of various hardware and software systems
- Establish standards for good RFI measurement practice and data analysis methodologies
- Provide input on mechanical enclosures and other techniques for the mitigation of radio frequency interference
- Work as part of a team on the ongoing identification and characterisation of RFI culprits on site
The ideal candidate will have the following competencies:
Ability
- operate within a development environment
- manage (motivate and work with) a group/team
- develop customized software applications to analyse Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) data using tools such as Python, C++, Java, Matlab and IDL
- specify, design and develop highly specialised radio frequency measurement equipment and software
- problem solving
- produce reports and analysis
Experience
- Radio Frequency (RF) system integration
- software and firmware development
- RF hardware development, including working with antennas, low noise amplifiers, switches, mixers and other RF components
- RF measurements and data analysis
- Linux and Bash Shell Scripting environments
Knowledge
- propagation analysis tools
- software development tools such as Python
- data analysis tools
- technologies that operate in the RF spectrum
About The Employer
The South African SKA Project (SKA SA) is a project of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), administered by the National Research Foundation (NRF). SKA SA is responsible for coordinating Africa’s involvement in the design and construction of the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, the design and construction of the Karoo Array Radio Telescope (MeerKAT) and the African VLBI Network (AVN), as well as the development of skills required to design, build and operate these instruments.
As a business unit of the NRF, SKA SA is committed to employment equity and redress
Type of employment: Permanent
The South African SKA Project (SKA SA) is a project of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), administered by the National Research Foundation (NRF). SKA SA is responsible for coordinating Africa’s involvement in the design and construction of the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, the design and construction of the Karoo Array Radio Telescope (MeerKAT) and the African VLBI Network (AVN), as well as the development of skills required to design, build and operate these instruments.
As a business unit of the NRF, SKA SA is committed to employment equity and redress
Type of employment: Permanent
