We are looking for an experienced SIGINT / RF Reverse Engineering Engineer to join a fast-growing European defence technology environment developing advanced solutions for the detection and identification of unmanned aerial systems.

This is a highly hands-on engineering position for someone who enjoys working with unknown RF signals, digital communications and proprietary wireless protocols, understanding how they operate and translating that knowledge into real detection and identification capabilities.

You will work at the intersection of SIGINT, RF engineering, digital signal processing, software-defined radio and protocol reverse engineering, with the opportunity to gradually take technical ownership and support junior engineers as the team grows.

The Role

Your main mission will be to analyse RF signals that existing systems can detect but cannot yet identify or classify.

You will work systematically from:

Unknown RF signal → characterization → modulation → synchronization → framing → protocol understanding → identification

You will analyse communication links used by commercial, industrial and proprietary drone platforms, including command-and-control, telemetry and data/video communications.

The role combines hands-on signal analysis and software development, laboratory experimentation and the development of new detection and classification capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

You will capture, analyse and characterize RF signals associated with UAS/drone platforms and other relevant wireless communication systems.

You will identify signal characteristics including carrier frequencies, bandwidth, symbol rates, modulation schemes, timing characteristics, channel structures, coding and framing.

You will perform detailed analysis of IQ recordings, spectrum data and wireless communication signals and investigate modulation techniques including FSK/GFSK/MSK, BPSK/QPSK/PSK, QAM, OFDM, FHSS, DSSS and other spread-spectrum systems.

You will identify synchronization sequences, preambles, pilots, frame structures and packet formats, and reverse-engineer undocumented or proprietary over-the-air protocols.





You will develop signal-processing algorithms for detection, classification and identification, including RF fingerprinting and emitter identification techniques.

You will contribute to the creation and maintenance of internal RF signal, emitter and protocol libraries.

You will work with SDR platforms, spectrum analysers and vector signal analysers and develop your own analysis tools when existing solutions are insufficient.

Your findings will be translated into engineering requirements and operational detection capabilities.

As the team develops, you may also take increasing technical responsibility and help mentor or guide more junior engineers.

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for an engineer with approximately 5–10 years of relevant professional experience in areas such as:

SIGINT / COMINT, Electronic Warfare, RF engineering, Software-Defined Radio, telecommunications R&D;, wireless security research, signal processing or wireless protocol reverse engineering.

You should have strong practical knowledge of digital communications and RF signal processing, together with the curiosity and methodology required to understand communication systems for which little or no documentation exists.

Hands-on experience with signal discovery, modulation recognition, symbol and clock recovery, carrier and timing synchronization, frame reconstruction, channel coding, scrambling, interleaving, protocol analysis, RF fingerprinting or emitter identification is particularly relevant.

Experience analysing drone or UAS communication systems would be a significant advantage.

Technical Environment

Relevant experience may include:

GNU Radio, Python, NumPy, SciPy, MATLAB/Simulink, C or C++.

Experience with SDR hardware such as USRP,



BladeRF, LimeSDR or similar platforms is highly valuable, as is experience working with spectrum analysers, vector signal analysers and protocol-analysis tools such as Wireshark.

Knowledge of firmware, embedded systems or hardware reverse engineering is considered an advantage when it supports RF communication analysis.

AI & Machine Learning

Machine learning is considered a supporting capability within the SIGINT workflow rather than the core of the position.

Experience applying ML techniques to automatic modulation recognition, RF signal classification, RF fingerprinting, emitter identification, IQ data or spectrogram analysis would therefore be valuable.

Experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow or scikit-learn is a plus.

Most importantly, you should understand when traditional DSP techniques are the most appropriate solution and when machine learning can improve classification, detection or scalability.

Profile

You are technically curious and enjoy understanding complex systems at their lowest level.

You are comfortable experimenting, building your own tools and working with large quantities of RF and IQ data.

You enjoy solving problems where the answer is not already documented.

You combine solid theoretical knowledge of communications with a practical, engineering-oriented mindset.

You are comfortable working in a small, fast-moving technology environment where your work can have a direct impact on the product.

Professional proficiency in English is required. Dutch is considered an advantage.

Why Join?

You will work on cutting-edge technology at the intersection of RF engineering, signal intelligence, counter-UAS and defence technology.

You will have direct technical ownership, work closely with a highly specialised team and contribute to technology designed to identify and understand emerging wireless threats.

For an engineer who genuinely enjoys taking an unknown signal and figuring out what it is, how it works and how to identify it again, this is an opportunity to work on exactly that challenge.

📌 Sigint / rf reverse engineering engineer (España)
🏢 OKATIM IBERICA
📍 España