Senior RF / Sensor Integration Engineer
About Manna
At Manna, we’re changing how the world receives things — by taking delivery to the skies.
Our mission is simple but ambitious: to make high-speed suburban delivery affordable, green, and safe. We design and build our own aviation-grade drones that deliver food, coffee, groceries, and more directly from local stores and vendors to people’s doors in just a few minutes.
We’re a team that Drive with Impact, are Safety Focused, and knows that the best ideas come from Team Players who show up as their Authentic Selves. We move fast, we are passionate about what we do, and we’re always pushing a growth mindset to be better in everything we do.
If you want to build world-changing technology with real-world impact (and have a bit of fun while doing it), you’ll love it here.
Welcome to Manna — where we deliver the future.
Role Purpose
To design, optimise, and validate high‑performance RF, antenna, and sensor systems across GNSS, cellular, and wireless technologies, supporting end‑to‑end hardware development through strong RF engineering, PCB design, and hands‑on testing.
Responsibilities
Lead the architecture, design, and validation of airborne RF front-end systems for GNSS, LTE/5G, WLAN, Remote ID, and telemetry links.
Own end-to-end RF link performance across airborne operational environments, addressing noise figure, sensitivity, dynamic range, fading, multipath, and destructive interference.
Design RF PCB layouts and stackups with strict controlled impedance routing, isolation strategies, grounding schemes, and shielding tailored for high-density airborne electronics.
Lead antenna selection, design, placement, and validation, including MIMO and diversity architectures, ensuring optimal radiation efficiency, pattern control, and polarization integrity.
Design for GNSS robustness and resilience, including mitigation of interference, coexistence issues, and performance degradation due to airframe and environmental effects.
Perform impedance matching and RF network optimisation using S-parameters, Smith charts, return loss, VSWR, and bandwidth optimisation techniques.
Conduct hands-on RF characterisation and debugging using spectrum analysers, vector network analysers (VNA) etc.
Integrate and optimise sensor systems including GNSS, inertial sensors, radar, LiDAR, and machine vision
Design for EMC and ESD compliance from concept stage, ensuring compliance with FCC, CE, ETSI, and relevant aviation or operational regulatory standards.
Support flight testing, field validation, and performance analysis under real-world operational conditions.
Requirements
System-level RF front-end architecture, design, and test for GNSS, LTE/5G, WLAN, and Remote ID applications
End-to-end optimization of GNSS and cellular RF links, addressing noise performance, multipath and fading, destructive interference, coexistence and radome and enclosure effects
RF PCB layout and stackup design, including controlled-impedance routing, grounding strategies, isolation, and shielding techniques
General electronics design experience including power supply design, microcontroller/microprocessor integration, battery management and design for manufacture (DFM)
Design for EMC and ESD compliance, addressing conducted and radiated emissions and immunity in line with relevant FCC, CE, and ETSI requirements
Design, integration, and optimization of sensor systems including inertial, machine vision, radar/LiDAR technologies
Hands-on HW debug using scope, spectrum analyser, vector network analyser etc.
Antenna design, integration, and validation, including MIMO and diversity architectures
Impedance matching and network analysis, including use of Smith charts, S-parameters, return loss, VSWR, and BW optimization techniques
*This role is based in Dublin, Ireland.