RF Engineering Roles in Industry

Radio frequency (RF) engineers play a vital role in many industries. These professionals belong to a particular sub-category of electrical engineers who deal primarily with RF hardware and components. RF engineers are in high demand for their specialized knowledge and skill set.

Such engineers typically design and implement products such as various types of transceivers, RF chips, electronic warfare systems, and wireless devices. They are usually employed by the IT and Telecom sector. However, many RF engineers work in the aerospace and defense industries. Recently, quantum computing has expanded the number of exciting opportunities for RF engineers (check our article on essential skills for quantum hardware engineers).

There are estimated to be approximately 22,000 RF engineers in the United States, earning between $72,000 to $180,000 per year based on their skills, experience, size of the company, and the region. If you are interested in becoming an RF engineer, you should familiarize yourself with the various roles they perform in different industries, as well as the top skillsets for modern RF engineers.

RF Engineers generally fall into one of the following roles:

• Junior RF Engineer
• Senior RF Engineer
• Principal RF Engineer

Let’s examine each of these roles and what they entail.

Junior RF Engineer

Junior RF engineers typically hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, telecommunication engineering, or physics and have very limited or no prior working experience in the industry. These engineers work as a part of an RF hardware team and typically report to the senior RF engineer.

Junior RF engineers play a more hands-on role than their senior counterparts and spend most of their time in the lab testing and optimizing designs. This allows the junior RF engineers to gain valuable practical experience by interacting with real-world systems and components, which prepares them for their future role as senior RF engineers with a deeper design understanding. 

A typical day for a junior RF engineer involves designing, realizing, and testing RF components according to the specifications determined by the RF hardware team leader or the chief technology officer (CTO). These engineers are also required to become proficient in troubleshooting, detecting problems, and coming up with solutions.

Junior RF engineers may also be required to offer technical support to production teams to ensure RF components are designed, built, and tested according to specifications. Some employers may ask junior RF engineers to perform less hands-on roles such as creating technical documents, preparing presentations, and attending trade shows and marketing events.

Junior RF engineers typically make between $72,000 and $100,000 per year.

Senior RF Engineer

Senior RF engineers typically hold a master’s degree in electronics, telecommunications, or physics. These professionals are required to have 5+ years of industry experience and must have an excellent understanding of RF components and system design.

Senior RF engineers are expected to be creative problem solvers capable of bringing multiple disciplines together. They are skilled at assessing risks and making design decisions, even in the absence of full data.

These engineers spend most of their time on the design of RF systems. This is different from the junior RF engineer’s role, which focuses on minor incremental updates, testing, and optimization of the system designed by the senior RF engineer.

A Senior RF Engineer may occasionally work on hands-on tasks. However, their primary duties are more managerial. They lead hardware teams and delegate responsibilities between Junior RF engineers and technicians. They may also mentor Junior RF engineers at the company and help them develop their skill set.

Some senior RF engineers communicate directly with customers and prepare technical white papers, customer presentations, and proposals for senior management and clients.

Senior RF engineers typically make between $110,000 and $130,000 per year. Their pay grade generally is higher than that of junior engineers due to their extensive work experience and the managerial nature of their role.

Principal RF engineers typically hold a master’s or Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering or a related field. These professionals are required to possess a minimum of 10+ years of industry experience and understand the complete hardware development cycle.

Principal RF Engineer

Principal RF Engineers hold companies’ highest RF engineering positions and are recognized as engineering authorities. They possess extensive practical experience from working as engineers and report directly to the company’s senior management.

These professionals hold technical knowledge of RF components and system design, implementation, and testing. However, they focus primarily on advanced designs and technical strategic planning for their company. They set goals for their RF engineering department and perform a key role in ensuring these goals are met.

Principal RF engineers share expertise and insight with other engineers working on the project and foster collaboration between departments.

Principal RF engineers typically make between $140,000 to $180,000. Some Principal RF engineers working at specific companies may earn less than senior RF engineers working at other companies. This difference in pay may occur due to the difference in company size, the region, and the number of members working on the company’s RF engineering team.

Conclusion

Aspiring RF engineers will likely work in each of the abovementioned roles if they pursue a long career in this field. However, they must ensure they possess the right qualifications to be hired as RF engineers.

Quaxys offers skill-based RF courses to help bring RF engineers up to speed with vital RF concepts and hands-on training and impart the knowledge and skills they need to solve real-world problems in industry and research.

Our courses use a unique road map that accelerates learning and focuses on the primary training areas RF engineers require. We support participants with the help of interactive online simulators, calculators, and valuable PDF resources and videos. We also offer RF educational kits in select courses to help engineers gain a more in-depth understanding of these concepts.