Software Defined Radio Hardware Intern (Winter 2027)
Summary
A 12-week hourly internship at Astranis (a satellite manufacturer) in San Francisco, where the intern designs, simulates, implements, and tests in-house software defined radio hardware, brings up and debugs boards in the lab, and writes code to automate testing and evaluate performance of satellite hardware. Open to current Electrical Engineering students with hands-on PCBA experience.
Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe – large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military.
With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts. Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization.
Astranis has raised over $1.2 billion from some of the world’s best investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and Snowpoint, and employs a team of 500 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.
Software Defined Radio Hardware Intern (Winter 2027)
Internships at Astranis typically last for twelve weeks, and are hourly roles designed for students who are currently enrolled at a four-year university.
As an Intern, you will have an amazing opportunity to work on hard problems — we pride ourselves on giving everyone at Astranis a chance to do meaningful work on challenging projects, no matter their seniority. Many past interns have designed and tested hardware/software that is now flying on our first satellite, and many of them are now full-time employees at Astranis.
If you have already graduated from a four-year university, please apply to be an Associate Engineer.
Role
- Design, simulate, implement, and test our internally developed software defined radio hardware
- Bringup and debug hardware in the lab with top of the line instruments and equipment
- Write code to help evaluate performance and automate testing of satellite hardware
- Integrate these systems into the spacecraft by working closely with the rest of the team
Requirements
- A passion for hardware development, including working in a fast-paced environment and hands-on design and development
- Currently pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
- Demonstrated ability to personally design, build, and test PCBA hardware from scratch (student design team projects, design competitions, personal projects)
- Solid EE foundation in one or more of the following areas:
- analog design (op amps, transistors, RLC filters)
- digital design (FPGAs, SOCs, SERDES, DDR, LVDS)
- mixed signal design (ADCs, DACs, power integrity)
- RF design (Lineups, s-parameters, impedance matching)
Bonus
- Experience building or using software defined radios
- Experience with Altium Designer (or other PCB design software)
- Experience with analysis software (ADS, ANSYS, Matlab)
- Experience with Python or similar programming languages
- Experience with soldering and rework
- Experience with EE lab bench equipment (power supply, oscilloscope, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, network analyzers, etc)
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Skills
As published by greenhouse · 14 questions · 6 written answers
Basics
First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Resume/CV, Location
Short answers (4)
- When are you able to join Astranis as an intern? (12 week minimum)
- When do you plan on ending your internship?
- How did you hear about Astranis?
- LinkedIn Profile optional
Pick from a list (4)
- Astranis complies with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, therefore will you state which of the following applies to you:
- Please answer three of the following questions.
- Please confirm the season you are applying for. optional
- At Astranis, we value in-person collaboration and a strong work ethic. Are you comfortable with working onsite at our San Francisco HQ 5 days a week?
Written answers (6)
- What is the most impressive thing you have ever accomplished?
- We put capacitors on our voltage supplies in order to filter out high frequency noise. Which is better: a 10uF capacitor or a 0.1uF capacitor? Why optional
- A member of the software team recently got into LED art. They bought a couple of cheap LEDs and resistors and and wired them up. They expect all four to be the same brightness, but they're not. Why is that? Schematic: https://i.imgur.com/H0eYbLs.png optional
- We need a power converter to go from a 5 V battery V to 3.3 V to a small microcontroller in low power mode. If we want it to be efficient, should we use a buck converter or a low drop-out regulator (LDO)? optional
- It's karaoke night at the office! We're choosing a DAC to play music from our computer - what are some important factors in the design? optional
- We use photodiodes to track our orientation relative to the sun. Briefly describe a possible signal chain from a photodiode to a microcontroller. optional
