Antenna Design Engineering Manager (Player-Coach) - Vehicle Antenna Systems (VAS) North America

Antenna Design Engineering Manager - VAS North America

Location: Grand Blanc, Michigan

Travel: Less than 10%

Your Job

As Antenna Design Engineering Manager, you will lead an accomplished automotive antenna engineering team while remaining actively involved in antenna design, simulation, testing, and technical decision-making.

We are looking for an entrepreneurial leader who is energized by challenging the status quo, identifying better ways to work, and turning ideas into meaningful results. You will grow your own capabilities while helping team members realize their potential and creating long-term value for Molex and our customers.

This newly created player-coach role offers the opportunity to strengthen how the team prioritizes its work, documents technical knowledge, and applies proven designs across future vehicle programs. You will bring greater structure and collaboration to a team of talented engineers while helping deliver high-quality products on time.

You will solve complex antenna-integration challenges across numerous vehicle platforms and wireless technologies. The team has access to advanced simulation tools, comprehensive antenna measurement equipment, and an indoor vehicle test chamber. As part of Molex, a Koch company, we take a long-term approach to investing in the resources, technology, and people needed to create value and advance automotive antenna innovation.

Our Team

Our Vehicle Antenna Systems team develops advanced antenna solutions for automotive customers across North America. We support a broad portfolio of vehicle platforms, customer programs, and wireless technologies from initial concept through production.

You will lead experienced antenna, high-frequency, and simulation engineers with deep technical knowledge. Your leadership will help turn individual expertise into shared capability by strengthening collaboration, technical documentation, design reuse, and engineering processes.

The team partners with mechanical, validation, circuit-design, manufacturing, supplier, and customer engineering groups. We also collaborate regularly with global engineering teams, including colleagues in Germany and China, to share designs, technical methods, and lessons learned.

What You Will Do

• Serve as a hands-on player-coach, spending approximately 60% of your time on technical leadership, antenna engineering, design reviews, simulation, testing, and problem-solving, and approximately 40% leading and developing the engineering team.
• Lead the development, simulation, integration, and optimization of automotive antenna structures and high-frequency systems from concept and prototyping through vehicle validation and production.

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• Provide technical leadership across technologies including 5G, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, vehicle-to-everything (V2X), ultra-wideband (UWB), AM/FM, digital audio broadcasting, satellite radio, and keyless-entry systems.
• Establish clear priorities, ownership, and development plans that help the team meet technical, quality, schedule, cost, and customer commitments.
• Improve engineering efficiency by implementing repeatable processes, documentation standards, and design-reuse practices that enable the team to apply proven technology across multiple vehicle platforms.
• Lead design reviews, evaluate simulation and measurement results, identify technical risks, and guide failure analysis, corrective actions, over-the-air testing, and complete-vehicle validation.
• Lead with an entrepreneurial mindset by constructively challenging existing approaches, encouraging new ideas, removing barriers, and coaching team members to expand their capabilities, take ownership, and create greater value.
• Represent antenna engineering in customer presentations and cross-functional technical reviews while partnering with engineering, manufacturing, supplier, and global teams.
  
  
  

Who You Are (Basic Qualifications)

• Master’s degree or higher in electrical engineering, communications engineering, high-frequency engineering, physics, or a comparable technical field.
• 10 or more years of professional experience developing antenna structures and systems.
• Experience with electromagnetic simulation, antenna structure design, performance optimization, and antenna integration.
• Experience using electromagnetic simulation tools such as CST Studio Suite, Ansys HFSS, or FEKO.
• Experience with radio-frequency measurement technology, network analyzers, antenna test chambers, and over-the-air measurements.

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• Experience leading complex antenna development from concept and simulation through prototype testing, validation, and production.
• Experience providing technical or people leadership to engineers working on complex development programs.
  
  
  

What Will Put You Ahead

• Direct experience designing and integrating automotive antenna systems into vehicle components or complete vehicles.
• Experience with automotive antenna architectures, packaging constraints, vehicle-level electromagnetic behavior, and production requirements.
• Experience with active and passive antenna systems and radio-frequency front-end architectures.
• Experience across multiple wireless technologies, including 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, V2X, UWB, broadcast radio, satellite radio, or keyless-entry systems.
• Experience using Optenni or related radio-frequency optimization tools.
• People-management experience leading antenna, high-frequency, electromagnetic simulation, or related engineering teams.
• Experience presenting technical concepts, design recommendations, risks, and validation results to automotive customers.
• Experience establishing technical documentation, design libraries, engineering databases, or other methods for reusing proven designs and lessons learned.
• Experience collaborating with globally distributed engineering teams.
  
  

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At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Sponsorship & Relocation

Relocation assistance is available, and employment sponsorship may be considered for qualified candidates within the United States.

Hiring Philosophy

All Koch companies value diversity of thought, perspectives, aptitudes, experiences, and backgrounds. We are Military Ready and Second Chance employers. Learn more about our hiring philosophy here.

Who We Are

As a Koch company, Molex is a leading supplier of connectors and interconnect components, driving innovation in electronics and supporting industries from automotive to health care and consumer to data communications. The thousands of innovators who work for Molex have made us a global electronics leader. Our experienced people, groundbreaking products and leading-edge technologies help us deliver a wider array of solutions to more markets than ever before.

At Koch, employees are empowered to do what they do best to make life better. Learn how our business philosophy helps employees unleash their potential while creating value for themselves and the company.

Our Benefits

Our goal is for each employee, and their families, to live fulfilling and healthy lives. We provide essential resources and support to build and maintain physical, financial, and emotional strength - focusing on overall wellbeing so you can focus on what matters most. Our benefits plan includes - medical, dental, vision, flexible spending and health savings accounts, life insurance, ADD, disability, retirement, paid vacation/time off, educational assistance, and may also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave and adoption assistance. Specific eligibility criteria is set by the applicable Summary Plan Description, policy or guideline and benefits may vary by geographic region. If you have questions on what benefits apply to you, please speak to your recruiter.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.

Equal Opportunities

Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and protected veteran status. Except where prohibited by state law, some offers of employment are conditioned upon successfully passing a drug test. This employer uses E-Verify. Please click here for additional information. (For Illinois E-Verify information click here, aquí, or tu).

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