Radar Engineer

Location

Austin

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

Department

Software Engineering

Compensation

$135,000 (Range: $100K – $155K) • Offers Equity

Overview

Location: Onsite — Austin, TX Employment Type: Direct Hire, Full-Time Job Title: Radar Engineer

About 9 Mothers

The modern battlefield has changed. Cheap, autonomous suicide drones have turned the tactical advantage upside down, and the world is looking for a solution. At 9 Mothers, we aren’t just "innovating"—we are building the shield. Backed by top-tier investors, we develop AI powered machines designed to intercept and neutralize Group 1/sUAS threats in real-time. Our flagship product is a low-power, counter-drone system built for the edge—on vehicles, at bases, or in a soldier's pack.

Why 9 Mothers?

While others build for "awareness" or "long-term research," we build for the immediate survival of those in harm’s way. We are a team of hackers, engineers, and mission-driven builders who value field-ready capability over polished slide decks. If you want to see your code or hardware in the field next month—not next year—this is your playground.

Position Summary

9 Mothers is hiring a Radar Engineer to own the radar sensing layer of our counter-sUAS kill chain. In this role, you will integrate and tune radars from multiple vendors so that their detections and tracks feed cleanly into our platform—alongside our passive acoustic (Vor) and in-house visual detection stack—giving Edda and future systems an earlier, more reliable picture of incoming threats. You will own the full radar lifecycle: characterizing sensors, writing the software that ingests and processes radar data, tuning radar configurations for performance against small, fast, low-RCS targets in cluttered environments, and validating that performance on the range. This role sits at the intersection of RF engineering, embedded and real-time software, and systems integration in a fast-moving defense startup environment.

Essential Duties

Radar Characterization: Run bench and range characterization of the radars we field (e.g., FMCW, pulse-Doppler, electronically scanned arrays) to verify vendor performance claims and establish baselines for tuning.
Radar Integration: Integrate multiple radar models into our counter-drone platform, including mechanical/electrical interfaces, timing and synchronization, coordinate-frame alignment, and vendor SDKs, APIs, and data protocols.
Software Development: Design, build, and maintain the software that configures radars and ingests, filters, and publishes their detections and tracks to the rest of our system in a reliable, low-latency manner.
Performance Tuning: Tune radar parameters—waveform and mode selection, detection thresholds, CFAR, clutter maps,Doppler filtering,and track initiation/maintenance—to maximize probability of detection and minimize false alarms against small,f ast sUAS in real-world environments.
Sensor Fusion Support: Work with the perception and controls teams to fuse radar tracks with acoustic and EO/IR data,and to cue our visual tracking and effectors from radar.
Testing & Validation: Build and execute test plans,in cluding simulation,h ardware-in-the-loop,and live-flight range testing with our UAS pilots; establish metrics for detection range,t rack quality,l atency,and false-alarm rate.
Field & Customer Support: Support radar setup,s ite surveys,and tuning during customer demonstrations,pilots,and field deployments; troubleshoot issues from RF front end through software stack.
Documentation: Produce maintain integration documentation interface control documents (ICDs),tuning guides,test reports for internal teams external partners.

Requirements

Radar Experience: 5+ years hands-on experience as radar engineer or similar role with multiple radar types/vendors.
Integration Track Record: Experience integrating radars into larger systems (vehicles/fixed sites/C-UAS/air defense/autonomy) through to fielded use.
Tuning & Optimization: Proven experience tuning radar configuration/processing parameters improve detection/tracking/false-alarm performance clutter/interference.
Radar Fundamentals: Strong knowledge radar principles including range equation,RCS,Doppler processing CFAR/clutter/multipath/multi-target tracking (e.g., Kalman filtering).
Programming & Tooling: Proficient C++ & Python; able write production-quality code for radar data ingestion/processing Linux.
Systems Troubleshooting: Comfortable diagnosing issues across RF hardware/networking (TCP/UDP)/timing/software layers; use lab equipment like spectrum analyzers & oscilloscopes.
Independence & Ownership: Resourceful self-starter comfortable owning ambiguous sensor problems end-to-end; willing spend meaningful time on range startup environment.
Compliance: Requires access export-controlled info under ITAR; only U.S.citizens permitted; must submit background check.

Nice-to-Have

C-UAS Radar Experience systems like Echodyne/Robin Radar/Blighter/RADA or comparable.
Small-target detection experience including micro-Doppler signatures/discrimination birds/clutter.
Signal analysis tools experience: MATLAB or NumPy/SciPy for radar signal/data analysis.
Sensor fusion experience combining radar EO/IR/acoustic/RF sensors.
Embedded & real-time systems experience: ROS/ROS 2,NVIDIA Jetson,FPGAs or real-time pipelines.
Familiarity interoperability standards like ASTERIX/Cursor-on-Target/SAPIENT sharing radar tracks C2 systems.
Defense industry background including ITAR/compliance-bound environments DoD customers.
Education: BS/MS Electrical Engineering/Physics related field focused RF/signal processing/radar.
Clearance: Active security clearance eligibility obtain one.
Passion building robots engineering projects hobby.

Benefits

Meaningful Early Equity: Foundational owner status; contributions directly drive stake value.
Direct Roadmap Influence: Seat table shaping product/technology trajectory day one.
Mission-Critical Work: Systems actively needed Department War against real-world threats.
Builder’s Playground: Brand-new lab optimized rapid prototyping NVIDIA Jetsons/high-end scopes/3-D printers.
100% Employer-Paid Premiums: Medical/dental/vision premiums fully covered;50% healthcare premiums covered dependents.
Unlimited PTO: Results-focused culture valuing recharge time clock-watching.
Zero Red Tape: Autonomy make technical decisions without lengthy committee approvals typical larger firms .
Austin-Based Culture : Onsite team prioritizing high-bandwidth collaboration rapid field-testing Austin TX .
Relocation Assistance : Support provided relocate talent Austin smoothly .

About Interview 1.Phone call recruiter(30 min) 2.First Round Virtual Interview(2 hr 15 min total) via MS Teams -Part1(1 hr): Evaluation core radar/software skills aligned role requirements - Interview Break(15 min) -Part2(1 hr): Deep dive radars integrated/tuned exploring domain expertise 3.2nd / Final Round Interview(6 hrs) onsite Austin TX -Hand s-on Working Session(3 hrs): Solve small radar data/integration problem alongside team - Architecture Discussion(1–2 hrs): Big-picture thinking sensing chain/system design / architecture - Wrap-up Conversations(30 min–1 hr): Two individual conversations team fit/questions 4.Reference Checks & Offer --- ## Equal Employment Opportunity 9 Mothers Equal Opportunity Employer.All qualified applicants receive consideration without regard race/color/religion/sex /sexual orientation/gender identity/national origin/disability/protected veteran status . --- ## Export Control This position may require access information technology subject U.S.export control laws/regulations including ITAR.U.S.citizenship required . --- ## Compensation Range $100K - $155K