--- title: 'RF Design Engineer at Specter' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/rf-design-engineer-specter-san-francisco-0sk1ksnsqstx' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-12' --- # RF Design Engineer at Specter - **Company:** Specter - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-07-13 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/9ed686f2-1948-4ca8-bc89-8ac11085e5a8 ## Job description Company Background Specter's mission is to help automate the physical world. Today, we build video sensors with state-of-the-art AI agents that answer any question, anywhere in their environments. Our systems can automatically detect and reason about any physical activity captured on camera, from security incidents (e.g. perimeter intrusion, theft, LPR), to safety monitoring (e.g. PPE detection, injured people), to operational efficiency (e.g. material tracking, congestion monitoring). We offer both long range wireless (1km range) and wired sensor variants to suit any deployment. Our co-founders Xerxes and Philip are passionate about empowering our partners in the fast approaching world of physical AI and robotics. We are a small, fast growing team who hail from Anduril, Tesla, Uber, and the U.S. Special Forces. ## The Role Specter is hiring an Antenna and RF Hardware Design Engineer to own the antenna and RF hardware design that sets the ceiling on our deployment range, capacity, and sectorization geometry. This role takes antenna designs from EM simulation through fabrication, measurement, and production qualification, and supports the broader RF team on PCB-level matching, isolation, and layout decisions. Responsibilities: - Antenna design: Model patch, array, and air-gap antennas in HFSS or CST. Take designs from simulation through fabrication, measurement, and qualification. - RF front-end design: Design matching networks, harmonic filtering, and PA/LNA chains for sub-GHz and Wi-Fi radios. - Multi-radio integration:Integrate Wi-Fi, HaLow, and other radios on shared platforms. Own coexistence and isolation across co-located standards. - PCB-level RF design: Own RF schematic and layout decisions: stack-up, controlled impedance, RF routing, and isolation. Review PCB layouts with the EE team. - Measurement and bring-up: Characterize designs on VNA, run S-parameter and radiation pattern measurements, and drive bring-up of new RF hardware. - Production qualification: Define acceptance criteria for RF designs and partner with the test team on qualification methodology. - Design and IP documentation: Maintain design files, measurement reports, and qualification artifacts. Qualifications: - 3–5 years of RF hardware design experience on production wireless hardware. - Strong RF fundamentals: transmission lines, impedance matching, S-parameters, signal integrity. - EM simulation: HFSS, CST, or equivalent. - Hands-on RF measurement: VNA, S-parameter, and pattern or gain measurement. - PCB-level RF design experience: stack-up, controlled impedance, RF routing, isolation. - Sub-GHz or ISM band experience (902-928 MHz preferred). - Project ownership and timeline discipline, you flag risks early and deliver without being chased. ## Nice to Have - Antenna design experience: patch, array, air-gap, or other constrained-form-factor antennas. - Multi-radio platform integration and coexistence (Wi-Fi + sub-GHz, Wi-Fi + cellular, or similar). - 802.11 standards knowledge, ideally including 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow. - Anechoic chamber operations or near-field scanning. - FCC Part 15 awareness as it relates to intentional radiators. - Altium or comparable PCB layout tool familiarity. ## About Specter ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Specter builds and deploys long-range wireless sensing networks with AI-powered real-time alerts and semantic search, creating the perception layer for the physical world. - **Entity Type**: Private (funding stage not publicly disclosed) - **Headquarters**: Not publicly available (likely US based on website language and job postings) - **Founded**: Not publicly available - **Founders**: Not publicly available ## Core Business - Primary industries: Physical security, critical infrastructure monitoring, industrial IoT, real-time situational awareness - Target customers: Enterprise and government – including energy companies, data centers, construction firms, ports, stadiums, industrial facilities, and campuses - Mission statement: "Creating a Software Defined Physical World" – providing instant awareness through real-time alerts, semantic search, and a map-based view of every event ## Products & Services - **Specter Platform**: A SaaS-based physical intelligence platform that ingests data from long-range wireless sensors (video, thermal, acoustic) and applies general AI (natural language alerts) to detect events such as unauthorized access, safety hazards, equipment anomalies, fires, spills, and perimeter breaches. Features include semantic search, live and historical event detection, and complete situational awareness dashboards. - **Long-Range Wireless Sensing Network**: Proprietary hardware and software for rugged, wide-area coverage without trenching – deployed across refineries, deserts, offshore platforms, construction sites, and other harsh environments. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Annual revenue not publicly available; company is actively hiring (Software Engineer – Systems listing) and has a live product across multiple industry verticals. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly available - **Growth Signals**: Recent website updates as of June 2026; expanding to new use cases (energy, data centers, construction, ports, stadiums); job openings indicate scaling engineering team. ## Competitive Advantages - **Long-range wireless sensing** that eliminates blind spots without trenching or on-site personnel – a differentiator for remote and harsh environments. - **General AI with natural language alerts** – users set and query alerts in plain English, lowering the barrier for security and operations teams. - **Multimodal sensing** (video, thermal, acoustic) combined with real-time analytics for high-fidelity event detection (e.g., PPE compliance, spills, equipment theft, person-down incidents). - Focus on **critical infrastructure** where downtime or security gaps carry high stakes, creating deep vertical-specific moats. ## Strategic Focus - Expanding horizontal deployment across energy, data centers, construction, logistics, and campus security. - Deepening AI capabilities through real-time semantic search and event detection to replace traditional CCTV monitoring. - Building a “software-defined physical world” that unifies disparate sensors into a single intelligent layer. ## Why Work Here - Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI + IoT systems that monitor real-world infrastructure at scale. - Engineering culture likely emphasizes distributed systems, computer vision, edge computing, and high-reliability software (based on job description for Software Engineer – Systems). - Fast-paced startup environment with a clear product-market fit across multiple verticals. - Remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated; job posting does not specify location, but likely offers flexibility. ## Sources 1. [specter.co](https://specter.co/) 2. [specter.co/product](https://specter.co/product) 3. [specter.co/industries](https://specter.co/industries) 4. [specter.co/features](https://specter.co/features) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com - Software Engineer – Systems](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/fe26a690-7934-46f4-bce2-8d8c5495a0dc) ## Other roles at Specter - [Founding Customer Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-customer-operations-lead-specter-san-francisco-4e0jb5pg08bh) — San Francisco, CA - [Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-specter-san-francisco-g75553wbxwx6) — San Francisco, CA - [Wireless Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/wireless-software-engineer-specter-san-francisco-zvjchm89fzv0) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer - Applied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-applied-ai-specter-san-francisco-p7er9310dx06) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Antenna Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-antenna-engineer-specter-san-francisco-xea2760wvrkw) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer — Fleet](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-fleet-specter-san-francisco-5tm2vh5drfnf) — San Francisco, CA - [Platform Site Reliability Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/platform-site-reliability-engineer-specter-san-francisco-c9mhsvjd32qq) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Deployment Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-deployment-strategist-specter-san-francisco-81ba238x3y8m) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Accounting Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-accounting-manager-specter-san-francisco-c560c7hymx09) — San Francisco, CA - [Hardware Test Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-test-engineer-specter-san-francisco-0tgzpmm9kqx3) — San Francisco, CA