**About Us:**Swan delivers the future of defense and industry through scalable autonomous products. Swan is backed by leading defense VCs including a16z’s American Dynamism fund.
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
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Design and implement SDR receiver algorithms for real-world RF signals.
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Develop acquisition, tracking, synchronization, and measurement-generation pipelines.
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Estimate Doppler, carrier phase, timing, delay, and signal quality metrics.
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Work with SDR platforms such as USRP/UHD, GNU Radio, RFSoC, or FPGA-based systems.
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Analyze collected RF data and debug receiver performance in lab and field environments.
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Evaluate waveform structure, modulation, channel behavior, and receiver implementation tradeoffs.
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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:
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GNSS / PNT receiver design
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Satellite communications modem or PHY development
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Radar signal processing
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Electronic warfare, ELINT, SIGINT, or spectrum monitoring
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Wireless PHY / LTE / 5G baseband processing
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Real-time SDR or FPGA-based signal processing
Useful Skills
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SDR development with GNU Radio, USRP/UHD, RFSoC, or FPGA SDR platforms
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Real-time DSP implementation
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Signal acquisition and tracking loops
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PLL / FLL / DLL design
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Doppler estimation and tracking
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Carrier recovery and timing recovery
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Matched filtering and correlation-based detection
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Frame synchronization and preamble detection
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OFDM, TDMA, DVB-S2/DVB-S2X, or other modem PHY experience
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GNSS observables such as pseudorange, carrier phase, Doppler, clocks, and ephemerides
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Navigation filtering, EKFs, factor graphs, or INS/GNSS integration
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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.