Head of SAR Systems

About the role

SAPPER INTELLIGENCE is seeking a senior leader to head the development of synthetic‑aperture radar (SAR) systems for airborne platforms. You will drive the full product lifecycle, from concept and design through testing, deployment, and support, working closely with the founders and a small, focused team.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the design, assembly and testing of UAV‑based ground‑penetrating SAR payloads (GPSAR).
• Optimize raw radar returns and implement high‑quality SAR image formation algorithms (back‑projection, range‑Doppler, Omega‑K).
• Build and maintain production‑ready processing frameworks that run in real‑time or near‑real‑time on GPU/CPU hardware.
• Guide RF hardware and platform teams to integrate the full processing pipeline into deployable payloads.
• Implement motion compensation, time‑zero alignment, geometric spreading correction, background subtraction, and other SAR‑specific corrections.
• Support AI engineers by delivering clean, high‑quality SAR data for automated detection and classification.

Required profile

• More than 5 years of hands‑on experience developing end‑to‑end SAR payloads for airborne platforms (UAV, airplane, satellite).
• Proven track record in leading RF and software development teams.
• Strong understanding of SAR imaging theory and practical implementation.
• Ability to work autonomously in a fast‑moving, early‑stage startup environment.

Required skills

• Python programming
• C++ development
• CUDA and GPU acceleration
• SAR image formation algorithms
• RF hardware integration
• Motion compensation and geometric correction techniques