Work with cutting edge technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world’s most challenging technical problems in the Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems. Working with high profile customers across militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters. There are approximately 290 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 350 staff by end of 2026. Overseas on the ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Denmark, Germany and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

DroneShield is seeking an Electronics Engineer with relevant experience to join the team in Sydney, Australia. The position will report to the Electronics Team lead in Embedded Systems.

The Embedded Systems Team is focused on providing fully operational and qualified modular devices to enable new product development of high-end RF based sensors and effectors. These modules are re-used across various product configurations including man-portable, vehicle mounted and fixed site. Key technical challenges for the electronics aspect of these modules include the design of complex wide-band RF circuitry, high speed digital interface and high-power radio frequency output. DroneShield designs and builds the full signal chain from signal generation to antenna.

Expectations of this role in the Electronics Team will be focused on PCBA design and validation of various modules, with an overall objective of providing confidence in product integrations and delivery to the customer. This will include electronic component selection, SCH/PCB design for reliable manufacturing, validation test plan development and execution, manufacturing test procedure development and hardware issue root-case analysis and resolution. More detail can be found below.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations 

• Collaborate on the design of new products with other engineers and become a valued member of an autonomous, cross-functional team. Consistently review and improve existing product lines, refining for quality and performance.
• Liaise with suppliers to support the procurement process and enforce quality control procedures.
• Building, prototyping, and testing new/existing products.
• Employing sound industry practices for documentation and QC.
• Self-managing workload (prioritisation) and workflow to meet key business objectives.
• Schematic and PCB design using Altium, including maintenance of component database and document templates.
• Hardware design for manufacturing, EMC and reliability.
• Proficient with test equipment for validation of high-speed digital and RF interfaces.
• Manufacturing test specification design and support for production setup & debugging.
• Hardware design validation planning and execution on both a modular and system level.
• Hardware laboratory equipment organisation and maintenance.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills 

• BS degree in Electronics Engineering, similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum of 5 years experience in hardware design, test and production support.
• Practical experience using benchtop test equipment such as high-speed oscilloscope, spectrum analyser and signal generators.
• SCH and PCB design using Altium.
• Theoretical and practical understanding of PCB layout techniques for high-speed digital and RF circuitry such as DDR RAM, PCIe bus or similar.
• Switch-mode power supply design experience.
• Hardware design principles for battery power device applications.

Desirable experiences and skills

• Leading projects or initiatives within a company environment
• Design for receiver sensitivity principles such as cascaded noise figure, dynamic range, noise floor degradation, etc.
• RF filter specification and selection. Design experience is desirable.
• RF power amplifier. Heat management principles.
• Transmitter RF front-end design up to 10 GHz and 100 W.
• Receiver RF front-end design up to 10 GHz including filter, diplexer, splitters, and LNA.
• Component specification for RF components such as power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, solid-state switches, power dividers/combiners, couplers
• Software Defined Radio experience is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of mainstream RF modulation techniques.
• Multi-carrier combining.
• RF hardware design theory and experience. Isolation, matching networks, filter specifications, etc.

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.