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Posted: January 20, 2026 (2 days ago)

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Radio Frequency Design Engineer Development Program - Entry Level (Maryland)

National Security Agency/Central Security Service

Department of Defense

Fresh

Salary

$87,362 - $123,388

per year

Closes

January 28, 2026

Job Description

Summary

This entry-level program trains new engineers to design and build radio frequency (RF) systems that help the NSA gather intelligence and protect national security.

You'll work on creating antennas, receivers, and communication tools to detect and analyze signals from around the world.

It's ideal for recent graduates with a technical degree who enjoy hands-on problem-solving and want to contribute to defense missions through a structured three-year development path with mentoring and travel.

Key Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree in Engineering (ABET-accredited or with specified coursework) and no experience, or Bachelor's in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or related field plus 1 year of relevant experience
  • Specified coursework including differential/integral calculus and at least 5 areas like electromagnetics, signal processing, circuits, or digital design
  • Relevant experience in designing/engineering communication or RF systems, or using test equipment
  • Interest and aptitude in RF technologies, logical analysis, and building systems like antennas or radios
  • U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain security clearance (due to NSA role)
  • Willingness to participate in a three-year full-time development program with mentoring and potential worldwide travel

Full Job Description

As an Engineering and Physical Science professional, you will use your skills to create the systems and tools that will be used to enhance the operation of intelligence.

You will advise, administer and perform scientific projects, such as planning, designing, and constructing specialized equipment, and ensuring adherence to sound engineering and scientific standards and principles.

For more information, please visit: https://apply.intelligencecareers.gov/job-description/1242772 The qualifications listed are the minimum acceptable to be considered for the position.

ENTRY/DEVELOPMENTAL With a degree in Engineering, entry is with a Bachelor's degree and no experience.

The program must be ABET accredited or include specified coursework.* With a degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or a relevant professional technical field, entry is with a Bachelor's degree plus 1 year of relevant experience.

These degrees must include specified coursework.* *Specified coursework includes courses in differential and integral calculus and 5 of the following 18 areas: (a) statics or dynamics, (b) strength of materials/stress-strain relationships, (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics, (d) thermodynamics, (e) electromagnetic fields, (f) nature and properties of materials/relating particle and aggregate structure to properties, (g) solid state electronics, (h) microprocessor applications, (i), computer systems, (j) signal processing, (k) digital design, (l) systems and control theory, (m) circuits or generalized circuits, (n) communication systems, (o) power systems, (p) computer networks, (q) software development, (r) Any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, or soil mechanics.

Relevant experience must be in the design and engineering of communication systems and/or radio frequency (RF) systems, and/or experience with test equipment. Major Duties:

Are you someone interested in all things Radio Frequency (RF)? Is your idea of a good time building out a better ham radio? Do you enjoy logical analysis of complex tasks?

If so, RF Engineering, a core component capability development activity within NSA, may be for you!

NSA's highly technical RF workforce keeps pace with RF advances and enables NSA to address threats to our Nation and our Allies by supporting worldwide Signals Intelligence requirements of our military commanders and national policymakers.

The NSA is seeking talented colleagues to join world class team of analysts, engineers, researchers and developers who work on projects using antenna and receiver design, RF signals analysis, end-to-end system design, and emitter location and direction finding techniques in order to design, develop and deploy advanced survey and collection capabilities to propel our mission.

At NSA, RF Engineers develop the technologies, communications and capabilities to maintain our global advantage in both information gathering and national defense.

RF Engineers acquire target signals, condition them for follow-on processing and deliver end-to-end solutions for survey, collection and emitter location and follow on analysis.

Use your unique experience and expertise to protect national security interests!

The Radio Frequency Development Program (RFDP) is a three-year full-time paid development program for earlier career RF engineers to develop and expand skills while making meaningful contributions to NSA's mission.

This talented group will have the opportunity to take part in customized mentoring, professional development and world-wide travel while sampling a breadth of RF engineering activities.

As an RF Engineer, your responsibilities can include: - Design, build, test and deploy end-to-end RF systems, from the antenna through follow-on processors.

- Design, build, test and deploy communications systems using commercial off the shelf (COTS)/government off the shelf (GOTS) radios, software-defined radios (SDR) and SDR frameworks, as well as field programmable gate array (FPGA) technologies.

- Design, develop, construct, test and maintain hardware and software processing components; typically subsystems of communication, collection, processing or analysis systems.

- Conduct RF site surveys and include results in the design and performance assessments of RF systems. - Work with and/or lead project teams to satisfy operational requirements for RF systems.

- Analyze results of RF collection in support of national mission requirements - Lead new advances in RF engineering and push the leading edge of RF communications technologies: - Antenna theory, design, and fabrication techniques with particular focus on beam-forming technologies - Modulation (BPSK, QPSK, spread spectrum, etc.), demodulation and signal separation techniques - Low power, space and cooling environments (including embedded systems) - Commercial telecommunication standards, protocols and topologies - Compression and other bandwidth optimization techniques - RF interference detection and mitigation approaches - Active RF techniques - Low probability intercept (LPI) and low probability of detection (LPD) techniques - Service-oriented architectures

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Posted on USAJOBS: 1/20/2026 | Added to FreshGovJobs: 1/21/2026

Source: USAJOBS | ID: 1242772