Job Description
Wireless Systems Architect
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San Diego, CA (Onsite) · Full-Time · Senior
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About Us:
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We are a stealth-mode deep-tech startup dedicated to connecting the world’s assets so they can be actively tracked, managed, and protected. We are building a device similar to an industrial-strength AirTag that communicates directly with satellites, peers, and ground infrastructure. To do this, we’ve invested heavily in our own custom silicon and waveform. By vertically integrating from custom silicon and novel waveforms up through the application layer, we have built a direct-to-satellite IoT network that communicates at a fraction of current costs and power envelopes, and with receiver sensitivity and battery life that existing architectures cannot match.
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Our custom ASIC is returning from fabrication. Our commercial protocol stack spans a novel MAC and PHY architecture, multi-hop mesh routing, and location tracking. The tech is proven, the TAM is gargantuan, and the founders have signed LOIs and conditional orders worth several billion dollars in ARR across applications ranging from supply chain logistics to laptop and cattle tracking.
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Our Team and Values:
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Joining our team means stepping into a small, high-caliber team united by a clear mission. We operate on two core values: high trust and high performance. We believe that small, focused groups of engineers, unburdened by the bureaucracy of large tech companies, can create transformative technology at a breakneck pace. On our team, you'll have real ownership, support when you hit hard problems, and a meaningful role in building something genuinely new at the silicon and protocol layer.
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Location: Onsite in San Diego (with occasional WFH flexibility)
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Employment: Full-time
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The Role:
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You will own the translation layer between system-level architecture and working implementation. The system architecture here is deep, fast-moving, and technically demanding, spanning waveform design, novel MAC and PHY protocols, multi-hop mesh routing, GPS processing algorithms, and the software stack from endpoint firmware through cloud.
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What You’ll Do:
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- Translating system-level concepts into implementable specs across endpoint firmware, network-side software, and cloud protocol logic
- Architecture review: evaluating proposed system designs for implementability, identifying constraints and failure modes before they reach the implementation teams
- Interface definition: owning the specification of boundaries between protocol layers and between teams
- Simulation environment requirements: utilizing AI and defining what the simulation environment needs to validate against feature specifications
- System-level link budget and capacity analysis
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Required Qualifications
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- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent
- Deep wireless protocol systems experience: has owned specifications from concept through implementation handoff in a commercial wireless product spanning multiple protocol layers
- MAC and PHY layer fluency across the full stack: can reason about waveform behavior, frame structure, MAC scheduling, and cloud protocol logic
- Wireless communications background: understands duty cycle constraints, link budgets, and the specific failure modes of low-power wide-area wireless
- Quantitative systems analysis: comfortable with link budget calculations, capacity modeling, and the kind of back-of-envelope physics that validates whether a system concept is achievable
- Strong written specification discipline
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Strongly Preferred
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- Qualcomm, Apple, or similar systems engineering and/or wireless architecture background where cross-layer system ownership is practiced
- Experience working at the interface between system design and firmware or protocol implementation: has been on both sides of a specification handoff and understands what makes it work or fail
- Simulation environment experience. AI simulation experience is especially helpful.
- Network planning or capacity analysis tooling experience
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Why You’ll Love Working Here
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- Foundational moment: the chip is coming back from fabrication now — people who join at this stage define what the company becomes
- High ownership and autonomy
- Life-transforming equity ownership, competitive salary, comprehensive health benefits
- High growth potential as we scale
- From lab to field: you'll see your work in real deployments — warehouses, aircraft, agricultural operations
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If you enjoy owning complex technical challenges end-to-end and want to help build industry-leading communication technology, we’d be excited to talk. To apply, please send your resume to careers@esperwireless.com
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