5G Planning Engineer

The client is urgently looking for a 5G Planning Engineer to work a 3 month rolling contract based in South Africa (Johannesburg).

Job Overview:

The client is looking for a highly experienced Senior RF Planning Engineer with strong hands-on expertise in 5G NR and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) rollout.
The ideal candidate has deep technical knowledge, proven project delivery experience and the ability to lead complex planning activities with minimal guidance.
This role requires someone who can design, optimize and manage large scale 5G FWA networks and support coverage, capacity and performance improvements across multiple regions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead end to end RF planning for 5G FWA, including link budgets, coverage design, capacity modelling and propagation analysis.
• Develop and maintain 5G NR planning guidelines, parameter strategies and network design documentation.
• Perform nominal planning using Atoll or Planet, including grid design, spectrum utilisation and site selection.
• Analyse customer capacity demand, household density, clutter types and outdoor CPE behavior to guide FWA coverage strategies.
• Conduct detailed propagation modelling for CPE indoor vs outdoor scenarios.
• Design and validate CPE signal thresholds, DL/UL throughput expectations and target KPIs for FWA.
• Support rollout teams on cluster design, site prioritization and deployment sequencing for 5G FWA expansion.
• Lead 5G NR interference analysis, PCI/RSI planning and Massive MIMO beam strategy alignment.

Required Experience & Skills:

• 5 to 7+ years of RF planning and optimization experience in mobile networks.
• Strong hands-on expertise in 5G NR planning, including coverage, capacity and interference management.
• Proven experience leading 5G FWA planning projects at large scale.
• Deep understanding of 5G technologies: Massive MIMO, beamforming, TDD planning, NR parameters, multi-band design.
• Expert level knowledge of RF propagation models used for FWA scenarios.
• Strong experience with planning tools such as Asset, Atoll, Planet or equivalent.
• Strong analytical skills with ability to interpret DT data, CPE performance data and OSS KPIs.
• Solid understanding of LTE anchor layer planning (L800/L1800/L2100/L2600) and its interaction with NR.
• Experience with VoNR planning is an advantage.
• Vendor experience with Huawei, ZTE, Nokia or Ericsson is a plus.

Please note: Due to the urgent hiring the client is looking for consultants based in South Africa.