Farcast’s three antenna roles face a seven-day, no-recruiter screen

The Screening Gauntlet

Farcast, a twelve-person space-communications startup in San Francisco, is hiring for three roles in its flat-panel antenna division as it moves from prototype to volume production of its SWaP-C phased-array terminals, and its founder-run screening process has become the bottleneck. No recruiting team exists. No phone screen with a coordinator. The first conversation is with someone who built the company and still runs it.

The company runs three interview stages in roughly seven days, beating the ten-day median for industrials and aviation startups under fifty people. Farcast uses Lever as its applicant tracking system, but the software doesn't filter candidates. A person does. The founder or hiring manager opens with a thirty-minute video call framed as culture fit and role expectations. That conversation is the gate. Candidates who treat it as a formality don't advance.

The second stage is a sixty-minute technical deep dive, run by the technical founder or a lead engineer. It tests past projects and problem-solving approach — no take-home assignment, no algorithm puzzles. The final round runs forty-five minutes with the founding team, covering team fit and offer discussion. Founders flag this round as the most challenging. The process answers one question: can this person operate autonomously from day one?

Autonomy is the explicit screen. At twelve people, every hire absorbs breadth — hardware, software, RF, regulatory, customer-facing work. The team rejects recycled CVs fast. They notice when you haven't tailored the application to what Farcast is actually dealing with right now: scaling flat-panel antenna production for a market that needs low-SWaP-C terminals yesterday.

Cold outreach to a founder outperforms the application form consistently. Roles at this stage typically draw fifty to a hundred applicants in the first two weeks. Applying within three days of a posting going live is the single biggest lever a candidate controls. Employers ghost most applications in this sector; a follow-up on day five can double the response rate.

The bottleneck isn't volume — it's visibility. With no dedicated recruiter, the founder's attention is the scarce resource. Candidates who clear the screen share one trait: they opened with what Farcast needs solved, not what they want next.

Three Roles, One Phased-Array Division

Jobera lists three onsite openings at Farcast, all tied to the flat-panel antenna division that produces its phased-array user terminals. The company's site describes the product line bluntly: advanced Flat Panel Antennas that use Phased Array technology to compensate for satellite and user movement through electronic beamscanning, with proprietary SWaP-C reductions for Active Electronically Scanned Antennas. That technical scope dictates the hiring profile. Each role sits at the intersection of RF front-end design, electromagnetic simulation, and the thermal-mechanical constraints of a terminal that must survive on a moving platform (a maritime vessel, an aircraft fuselage, a ground vehicle) while drawing minimal power.

Public records don't name the three titles or publish their qualification checklists. Jobera confirms the count (three onsite openings) but doesn't surface the job descriptions. What the public record does show is the technical surface area those hires will own. Farcast's antennas operate as AESAs: each element in the array needs phase- and amplitude-controlled transmit/receive chains, calibrated across temperature and vibration, with beamforming algorithms that track low-earth-orbit satellites crossing the sky at angular rates far higher than geostationary targets. That means the open roles almost certainly map to RFIC or MMIC design for the beamformer front end; antenna array architecture and electromagnetic co-simulation; and systems integration, linking the phased-array hardware to the modem, the mechanical package, and the thermal path that keeps the SWaP-C budget intact.

Colorado's labor market adds pressure. The state's 2026 forecast projects barely half a percent job growth (fewer than 18,000 new roles statewide) while unemployment drops to one in 25 workers amid retiring baby boomers and slower international migration. For a company demanding phased-array expertise that barely exists outside a handful of defense primes and Starlink's own teams, the candidate pool is effectively fixed. Farcast's screening rigor is partly a response to that scarcity: every hire must carry the full stack from silicon to system on day one, because there is no local bench to backfill gaps.

The company's own language, "reduces size, weight, power, and cost," signals that cost targets are as hard as performance targets. The roles likely demand documented tape-out experience for the RFIC track, measured array-pattern data for the antenna track, and flight-qualified hardware delivery for the integration track. None of those credentials appear in generic "RF engineer" resumes. They appear in the work histories of engineers who have shipped user terminals for LEO constellations, military satcom-on-the-move, or electronically scanned radar. Farcast's three openings are a direct bid for that cohort.

Why the Hiring Push Started Now

The hiring push traces to an inflection point: Farcast has finished development and pre-production and is moving into a production ramp in 2026, with full-scale manufacturing targeted for 2027. The company confirmed the timeline; Satellite Today echoed it in December 2025 coverage of Gogo's strategic investment. The transition from prototype to volume changes the talent profile overnight — you need people who can take a phased-array flat-panel antenna from a lab qualification unit to a repeatable build line, not engineers who only know how to iterate a breadboard.

The technology itself dictates the skill gaps. Farcast's core IP is a single-aperture, full-duplex flat panel antenna that transmits and receives simultaneously from the same surface. That is not a standard AESA architecture; most terminals separate Tx and Rx apertures or use frequency-division duplexing to avoid self-interference. Farcast's approach collapses the aperture, cutting size, weight, power, and cost while pushing bandwidth higher. The company calls it a breakthrough that reduces SWaP-C for operators and increases bandwidth at the same time. Telesat, which invested $5 million in November 2025 and had run a pre-production development program with Farcast since 2022, validated the claim: the competitive SWaP-C "would further enhance the value proposition for Telesat Lightspeed customers, delivering superior enterprise-class performance worldwide." The terminals are slated to be fully integrated with the Telesat Lightspeed modem by 2027.

Gogo's December 2025 equity investment adds a second production pull. Gogo built the only multi-orbit, multi-band in-flight connectivity provider purpose-built for business and military aviation. It invested in Farcast specifically to fund aviation user terminals for Gogo customers. The compact terminal fits existing aircraft real estate, extending connectivity reach into more aircraft categories, a direct path to volume. Lockheed Martin invested $2 million earlier in 2025, signaling defense interest. Between the three strategic backers, Farcast has secured $23.6 million in total funding.

The market logic is consolidation. Farcast's pitch: by cultivating deep relationships across the satellite ecosystem and designing for broad interoperability, it consolidates demand from a wide range of customers, unlocking production volumes that drive significant cost efficiencies. That is a manufacturing argument, not a demo argument. It means the company needs supply-chain engineers, test architects, production-quality leads, and RF integration people who have shipped hardware at rate. The three open roles in the flat-panel antenna division map to that shift.

Telesat's CTO Michel Forest put the broader stakes plainly: "We see value not only in what Farcast can provide for Telesat's telecom and enterprise customers, but also the wider satellite industry for mass-produced, high-performing terminals, including aviation and defence applications." Mass-produced is the operative word. The hiring window is open because the production ramp is real, the strategic partners have committed capital and roadmaps, and the technology has moved past the point where a handful of PhDs can carry it. The bottleneck now is people who know how to build thousands of something that used to be built in tens.

The Talent Market That Farcast Faces

The space industry's hiring crisis shows up in Farcast's pipeline as fewer qualified applicants per role and longer time-to-fill. SpaceNexus tracked 8,649 open postings across 49 employers in its latest pull from applicant-tracking systems. Two in three were engineering roles; one in five, manufacturing; one in 25, marked remote. That count covers only the employers SpaceNexus monitors, so the industry-wide number is higher. SatNews reported that 19 in 20 space companies face hiring and keeping engineers, with average recruitment cycles stretching to two and a half months as engineers leave commercial primes and government agencies.

Software and power electronics represent more than a third of total open vacancies across satellite and launch sectors, forming six of the top 10 most acute skill gaps. Industry-wide turnover has climbed to one in 14, driven by competition from commercial technology sectors offering flexible work policies and stock they can sell.

For a startup like Farcast, the math is brutal. The flat-panel antenna division needs RF engineers, antenna designers, and systems engineers, roles that sit at the intersection of the software/electronics deficit and the specialized hardware skills that take years to develop. Security clearance bottlenecks add another layer: many positions require Secret or Top Secret/SCI clearances, which take up to a year and a half to process. Companies need cleared workers to bid contracts, but workers can only get clearances through employer sponsorship. The backlog at the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency has improved from its 2019 peak but remains a significant constraint.

Geographic concentration compounds the problem. Space industry jobs cluster in Southern California, the DC metro area, Colorado Springs, and the Space Coast of Florida. California alone accounts for two in five U.S. space-technology patents and hosts one in three of the nation's space technology companies. Housing costs in these hubs can effectively negate salary advantages, and remote work is often impossible for classified programs or hardware development.

A mid-career gap makes hiring especially difficult. New graduates from aerospace programs are plentiful, and a cohort of senior engineers from legacy programs exists, but professionals who have seen complete spacecraft programs from requirements through operations are scarce. The shift toward faster program timelines (commercial companies routinely develop and launch satellites in two to four years versus a decade for traditional government programs) has shortened the runway for junior engineers to gain flight heritage.

Seven in ten technical workers had multiple job offers when they took their most recent role. Job postings requiring generative AI skills jumped 18-fold. The share of postings requiring data analysis skills is projected to rise from one in 11 to one in seven by 2028; data science skills from one in 33 to one in 20. Deloitte analysis reveals data science, data engineering, AI, machine learning, and statistical analysis are expected to be the fastest-growing skills between 2024 and 2028.

Farcast's three open roles sit in the crosshairs of every one of these trends. The company cannot match FAANG compensation, cannot offer instant clearances, and needs engineers who understand both RF hardware and the software-defined architectures that increasingly define modern satcom. The screening rigor described earlier is not just selectivity — it is a necessary filter in a market where a bad hire costs months of lost progress on a timeline that investors measure in quarters.

Getting Past the Screen

The bottleneck at Farcast is real. Three roles in the flat-panel antenna division sit open while the company's screening process filters candidates with SpaceX-level rigor. Comparable space-startup hiring shows a pattern: technical interviews are where most candidates wash out, and they test understanding, not recall. If you're applying cold through a portal, you're already behind.

Recruiting veteran J.T. O'Donnell told CNBC she would "honestly stop applying online." Data back her: positions advertised at major space companies receive hundreds of applicants within hours, driven by AI-generated submissions and auto-apply tools. Meanwhile, the share of recruiter-sourced hires has climbed 72 percent since 2023 to nearly 15 percent last year, Glassdoor said. The path in is visibility, not volume.

Start by building a target list. Farcast should be on it, along with 20 to 40 other companies whose work aligns with your specialty. Follow them on LinkedIn and Glassdoor. Comment thoughtfully on their technical posts. O'Donnell calls this "the new networking."

For the technical screen, prepare like you're interviewing at SpaceX, because the bar is similar. Analysis of SpaceX interviews shows the highest-priority practice areas: thermodynamics and heat transfer, structural analysis, fluid mechanics, failure modes, GD&T. Go deep on four to five of these, not shallow on twelve. Don't memorize equations. Derive them. Explain phenomena from first principles. Practice solving problems out loud as if teaching a class; the ability to articulate your reasoning under pressure is the transferable skill these interviews reward.

Know your own projects cold. Every design choice, every trade study, every failure mode you considered. Interviewers will probe the edges. Vague ownership signals shallow involvement.

Behavioral rounds filter for intensity tolerance. Prepare stories about high-stakes projects with ambiguous requirements, tight deadlines, and resource constraints. SpaceX interview guides explicitly note that candidates who emphasize work-life balance or ask about flexible hours during the interview are often filtered out. Farcast's flat-panel push operates on similar urgency. Frame your answers around ownership of difficult problems and working through ambiguity.

ITAR awareness is non-negotiable. Many roles at U.S. space companies require citizenship or permanent residency. Confirm your eligibility before investing weeks in prep. If you hold dual citizenship or a green card, know the exact status and be ready to document it.

Finally, study the technology. Farcast's SWaP-C focus (size, weight, power, and cost) means every design decision cascades across the system. Read every public paper, patent, and presentation from their team. Understand the link budget constraints of their target orbits. Know the thermal challenges of phased-array density. When you speak their language in the screen, you signal you've done the work, and that you're worth the time to evaluate.

The founder's inbox still fills faster than he can read it. The terminals still need to ship. And the next hire still has to walk in already knowing how to build what the last one only designed.

Working in space? Zero G Talent tracks the openings: see every open SpaceX role, browse space jobs, openings at Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, and the people building the field.