FPGA Design Engineer - Avionics

Team: Engineering & Operations

Location: Saratoga, CA

Commitment: Full-Time

Workplace Type: onsite

Salary:

We are looking for FPGA Design Engineers to develop, implement, and verify FPGA firmware for satellite avionics systems. You will work across multiple boards and subsystems, designing RTL for flight computers, payload processing, communications, and sensor interfaces. The role requires strong digital design fundamentals and the ability to deliver reliable, radiation-tolerant FPGA designs for a space environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and implement RTL in SystemVerilog or VHDL for satellite avionics FPGAs across a variety of FPGA platforms.
• Develop AXI Memory-Mapped and AXI-Stream protocol implementations for inter-subsystem communication.
• Perform FPGA resource and size estimation including logic, memory, and DSP budgeting.
• Implement clock-domain-crossing (CDC) design techniques and verify timing closure across designs.
• Design clock/reset tree architectures and manage timing-closure strategies for complex multi-clock designs.
• Develop SPI, I²C, GPIO, and other low-speed peripheral interfaces alongside high-speed transceiver links.
• Apply fault-tolerant digital design techniques including TMR, ECC, scrubbing, and SEE mitigation.
• Perform synthesis and place-and-route using vendor toolchains, including custom placement constraints.
• Support board bring-up by developing configuration, interface verification, and debug test sequences.
• Collaborate with digital design, power, and PCB layout engineers to ensure FPGA support circuitry meets requirements.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of FPGA design experience in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability systems.
• Proficiency in SystemVerilog and/or VHDL for RTL design.
• Experience with FPGA synthesis, place-and-route, and timing closure workflows.
• Demonstrated knowledge of AXI or similar bus protocols and interface design.
• Experience with clock-domain crossing techniques, FIFO design, and multi-clock architectures.
• Understanding of radiation effects on FPGAs and mitigation strategies (TMR, ECC, scrubbing).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with a variety of FPGA platforms and vendor toolchains (e.g., flash-based, SRAM-based, anti-fuse architectures).
• Background in signal processing (FFT, FIR/IIR filters) and DSP integration.
• Experience with transceiver design and high-speed serial communications on FPGAs.
• Exposure to DAC/ADC interfaces and mixed-signal digital handling.
• Experience with satellite or spacecraft FPGA applications.
• Proficiency in Python or TCL scripting for automation and build infrastructure.

Tools & Technologies:

• FPGA vendor toolchains (synthesis, place-and-route, timing analysis)
• RTL simulation tools (e.g., VCS, QuestaSim, or equivalent)
• Python, TCL, or shell scripting for build automation
• Makefiles for FPGA build workflows