Antenna Engineer Interview Questions 

Do you have a big job interview coming up? Are you curious about what type of questions you could expect for an antenna engineer interview? On this page, I'll hit up some of the topics that I consider fair game, along with a set of questions I've seen at interviews (quesitons I've given or received).

Antenna Engineer Interview Topics

1. Antenna Basics. Specifically, Directivity, Antenna Gain, Efficiency, Friis Formula, and Antenna Polarization should all be known.

2. Electromagnetics and Physics. Topics include Maxwell's Equations, properties of plane waves, and basic electromagnetics (such as wave polarization.

3. Smith Charts, transmission lines, and impedance matching.

4. Antenna Types, particularly dipole antennas and Microstrip Antennas.

5. Antenna Measurements.

Antenna Engineer Interview Questions

Here are a set of actual antenna engineer interview questions, to give you an idea.

Basic Questions (you must know these answers)

What is the difference between Directivity and Antenna Gain?

What are Maxwell's Equations?

What are the main types of antenna polarization?

What is the impedance of a dipole antenna?

What is VSWR?

What is Friis Transmission formula?

What are the far field conditions for an antenna?

What is the relationship between the speed of light, frequency and wavelength?

What is the size of a half-wavelength antenna at 900 MHz (or any other frequency)?

What is a balun?

What does an efficiency of -10 dB mean? What is 1 mW in dBm? If you double the power of 1 mW, what is that in dBm? In dB?

Intermediate Questions

What is the bandwidth (in %) for a dipole antenna, patch antenna, and slot antenna? What are the polarizations of each antenna?

Explain why a slot antenna radiates, including the effect of feeding position on the impedance.

Explain why a patch antenna radiates.

What is the difference between a loop antenna and a folded dipole antenna?

Show me how to impedance match (with lumped components) an impedance I marked on the Smith Chart.

The response of a dual band antenna is drawn on the Smith Chart. Discuss how you would impedance match both bands.

Explain as many different baluns as you can, describing why each works.

What is a quarter-wavelength transformer?

Harder Questions

How can you design a patch antenna to be circularly polarized? Explain why your method works, physically.

Industry Specific - Consumer Electronics

What is the diference between TRP and EIRP?

What is SAR? What is the FCC limit on SAR? How can you improve the SAR?

What is desense?

If the radio has a conducted transmit power of 20 dBm, and the antenna efficiency is -3 dB, what is the TRP? If the result is not what you expect, what effect is responsible for that?

If the TIS is not what you expect, and it is not the conducted sensitivity or load pull, what could be the reason?

Industry Specific - Defense Department Jobs

What is RCS (radar cross section)? What shapes and materials are good or bad for RCS?

Industry Specific - University

Discuss your previous research. Why is it important? Why were you interested in that topic?

What research are you looking to do in the future?

What funding sources have you had and are looking for in the future?

Finally, whatever you do, make sure you are excited about the interview. You must also show passion. Make sure you show that you want the job and like (or better yet, love) what you do. This is one area that can make or break a hiring decision.