Director, RAN Intelligent Controller

Responsibilities

• RIC Strategy & Architecture
• Competitive differentiation: Define and deliver the RIC capabilities that give Skylo a defensible edge on NR-NTN and Zephyr - sequencing the right bets, framing the right problems, and prioritizing optimization use cases with the greatest impact on link performance, capacity, and SLA outcomes.
• Standards & interfaces: Align the RIC roadmap with relevant O-RAN and 3GPP NTN directions; define open, well-documented interfaces between the RIC, the RAN, and the cloud platform, and represent Skylo's RIC positioning in external standards and partner engagements alongside the CTO Group.
• AI/ML-Driven Optimization
• Closed-loop intelligence: Build the hierarchical control loop in which models are trained on historical RAN and subscriber data in the non-RT RIC and deployed for inference and real-time action by xApps in the near-RT RIC, enabling predictive and adaptive network behavior.
• Measurable outcomes: Define KPI and SLO frameworks for RIC-driven optimization (capacity, latency, throughput, reliability) in partnership with Network Design & Planning and Network Operations, and demonstrate continuous, quantifiable improvement release over release.
• Delivery & Engineering Excellence
• Reliability & operability: Ensure the RIC is resilient, secure, observable, and operable 24x7 in Skylo's commercial network, meeting SLA requirements and minimizing customer-impacting defects.
• Quality deliverables: Standardize DevOps, CI/CD, and testing practices for the RIC, and own the quality of releases into pre-production and production environments.
• Leadership & Cross-Functional Partnership
• Team building: Recruit, build, and grow a high-caliber, geographically distributed RIC engineering team across the US, Finland, a

Benefits

Additional Information

The world still has coverage blind spots. You could help eliminate them at Skylo. Skylo has pioneered a standards-based approach to satellite connectivity. We connect smartphones and IoT devices directly to satellites. No special hardware, no entirely new networks. Just billions of existing devices, suddenly reachable anywhere on Earth. We're not building toward this future. We're already in it. Our direct-to-device service is live on millions of activated devices across five continents, covering more than 72 million square kilometers, in partnership with leading satellite operators, mobile network operators, Tier-1 chipset makers, and OEMs worldwide. And we're just getting started. At the heart of it all is Skylo's commercial NTN vRAN: a 3GPP standards-based, cloud-native platform that seamlessly bridges terrestrial and satellite networks. It's the infrastructure that makes true anywhere, anytime connectivity possible. When you join Skylo, you'll work at the intersection of three markets reshaping how the world stays connected: mass-market consumer devices, automotive, and industrial IoT. Enabling people outdoors and critical workflows in the world's most remote places. This is a rare chance to work on technology that matters, at a company that's already proving it works Position Summary Skylo is building the world's leading non-terrestrial network (NTN), and the RAN Intelligent Controller is central to the intelligence and competitiveness of that network. We are creating a new Director, RIC role to own the strategy, architecture, and delivery of Skylo's RIC - the programmable, AI/ML-driven control layer that optimizes our Radio Access Network in real time and at scale. The Director, RIC will build and lead the engineering team responsible for the near-real-time and non-real-time control loops (xApps and rApps) that differentiate Skylo's RAN. This role is the technical and organizational owner of the RIC needed to deliver Skylo's competitive edge on strategic programs including NR-NTN and Zephyr, working in close partnership with RAN, Network Design & Planning, the CTO Group, and Product. Group Charter Design, build, and operate Skylo's RAN Intelligent Controller - the intelligent control layer for the network - turning RAN, beam, and subscriber data into closed-loop optimization that delivers measurable gains in capacity, coverage, and reliability beyond the industry standard, and provides the competitive differentiation required for NR-NTN, Zephyr, and future Skylo programs.

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