Principal 5G RAN Engineer - Midrand

Introduction A Principal 5G RAN (Radio Access Network) Engineer is a top-tier technical authority responsible for the architecture, performance, and evolution of the wireless network. Unlike a standard RAN engineer, a "Principal" role focuses on high-level strategy, vendor governance, and solving the most complex systemic issues that ground-level teams cannot. Duties & Responsibilities 5G Roadmap Planning: Defining the transition from Non-Standalone (NSA) to Standalone (SA) architectures and preparing the groundwork for 5G research. Network Slicing: Designing end-to-end logical networks (slices) on the same physical infrastructure to support different use cases (e.g., Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency for robotics vs. Massive IoT). O-RAN & Disaggregation: Overseeing the shift toward Open RAN standards, ensuring interoperability between different hardware and software vendors (e.g., mixing Samsung, Mavenir, or Nokia components). 2. Advanced Performance & Optimization KPI Ownership: Taking ultimate responsibility for high-level Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like throughput, latency, and drop-call rates across the national or regional network. Massive MIMO Strategy: Optimizing advanced antenna technologies and beamforming techniques to maximize spectral efficiency and coverage in dense urban areas. Interference Mitigation: Leading the "war room" for complex interference issues that affect 5G spectrum (specifically C-Band or mmWave) which junior engineers are unable to resolve. 3. Vendor Management & Governance Technical Evaluation: Leading RFP (Request for Proposal) processes to select equipment vendors. You aren't just looking at the price; you're evaluating their 3GPP compliance and future feature roadmaps. Trial & Feature Validation: Overseeing "First Office Applications" (FOAs) where new software releases or hardware features are tested in a live environment before a mass rollout. Standards Advocacy: Often representing the company in global standards bodies like 3GPP to influence how future 5G and 6G protocols are written. 4. Leadership & Mentorship Technical Escalation: Serving as the final point of escalation for the most critical network outages or performance degradations. Upskilling the Workforce: Designing training programs to help junior RF and RAN engineers understand cloud-native networking and virtualization (vRAN/cRAN). Cross-Functional Liaison: Working with the Core Network and Transport teams to ensure the "backhaul" can handle the massive data speeds the 5G RAN is generating. Desired Experience & Qualification 10+ years in RF/Wireless engineering. Interested? If this role interest you please apply here on Pnet or visit follow our Linkedin Page for similar roles https://www.linkedin.com/company/kl-recruitment/?viewAsMember=true You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more roles and interview/career tips - https://www.youtube.com/@klrecruitment