Principal Mechanical Design Engineer, Antenna - Denver, CO, United States
$148,100 - $192,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 20 August 2026 by the employer.
This role focuses on mechanical and thermal solutions for phased array modules and antenna arrays.
About the role
This role involves developing mechanical and thermal solutions for advanced antenna products, supporting phased array modules, antenna arrays, RF components, and prototype hardware from design through validation.
What you'll do
- Design mechanical housings, heat sinks, and support structures for electronic printed circuit boards using 3-D CAD modeling tools.
- Evaluate fabrication approaches and communicate mechanical manufacturing cost and schedule impacts.
- Trade mechanical design performance across cost, performance, and schedule constraints.
- Support design of test and interface structures for antenna products with defined mechanical interfaces.
- Apply thermal design fundamentals, including heatsink design and thermal interface material selection and recommendations.
- Perform CFD thermal simulations and develop cooling solutions, including cold plates, heat sinks, and TIMs, for high-power RF components.
- Run FEA simulations to verify survivability under vibration, shock, and thermal cycling per MIL-STD-810 standards.
- Work with manufacturing teams to optimize designs for machining, injection molding, and surface mount technology (SMT).
What you'll need
- Bachelor's or master's degree in mechanical engineering or related field; Bachelor's degree with a minimum of twelve+ years’ experience.
- Strong proficiency in CAD tools, including SolidWorks/Creo, and FEA/CFD tools, including ANSYS/FloTHERM.
- Familiarity with RF packaging, PCB materials, coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) matching, and hermetic sealing.
- Ability to work closely with electrical engineers, RF designers, manufacturing teams, and manufacturing vendors.
Nice to have
- Experience designing mechanical structures for phased array modules, antenna arrays, RF components, and electronic housings.
- Experience developing cooling solutions such as cold plates, heat pipes, heat sinks, and thermal interface materials for high-power RF hardware.
- Experience applying MIL-STD-810 vibration, shock, and thermal cycling considerations to mechanical designs.
- Experience building, testing, validating, and debugging initial hardware prototypes in an antenna or RF product environment.
This role has been open 38 days — well below the 48-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
847
|
Median days open
48 d
|
Median salary
$159k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | QORVO | All employers we track in this specialty (847 roles · 102 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 847 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 29 | 5858 · 143 employers |
| Median days open | 28 d | 48 d (−20 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $159k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Intel Corporation · 59 open roles · median 20 d
- NVIDIA · 55 open roles · median 52 d
- KLA Corporation · 50 open roles · median 42 d
- Teradyne · 44 open roles · median 50 d
- AMD · 43 open roles · median 55 d
- Applied Materials · 41 open roles · median 67 d
How we counted: 847 open Hardware Systems Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 102 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 28 Sept 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.