FPGA Engineer (Space)

Viasat, Inc.•Tempe, AZ

About The Position

As a FPGA Engineer on the Space Infrastructure team, you will design, implement, and deliver high speed signal-processing algorithms, cryptography, and/or network protocols in FPGAs. You will be involved in the full design phase, starting from the requirements phase to documentation, block diagrams, implementation of source code, simulation, place and route, testing in hardware, and integration. You will assist other engineers from different fields and must be capable of working in both a small team setting and a larger team setting. You will be able to use your engineering knowledge to support the next generation of advanced communications products and systems.

Requirements

Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or a related field
2+ years FPGA design experience, including Xilinx Vivado
Strong knowledge of System Verilog and/or VHDL
Experience with RTL design for various signal processing blocks
Experience designing and coding for re-use, maintainability and scalability
Ability to read schematics and work closely with hardware design teams
Good oral and written communications skills
US citizenship
Ability to travel up to 10%

Nice To Haves

MSEE degree preferred
Experience with lab equipment including logic analyzers, DMM, spectrum analyzers
Experience with high-speed interfaces like SERDES, DDR2/3/4, LVDS
Experience with Programmable Logic EDA tools, such as AMD/Xilinx ISE/Vivado, Intel/Altera Quartus, Siemens/Mentor Graphics, Synopsys Synplify
Familiarity with TCL, Perl, Python or another scripting language
Familiarity with FPGA modules simulation and testbench development
Experience and familiarity with Linux-based development environments
Experience with GitHub
Experience with Matlab
Familiarity with CI/CD practices
Familiarity with AI Agents (Claud Code, Copilot, etc.)
Strong troubleshooting skills
Understanding and knowledge of Satellite communication waveforms and standards

Responsibilities

Contribute to architecture, design, and implementation of FPGA based digital systems
Develop RTL in Verilog, SystemVerilog, or VHDL for control, data processing, and communication functions
Integrate and deploy designs on FPGA and FPGA SoC platforms
Collaborate with team members to jointly develop high-speed digital signal processing and waveform processing algorithms supporting satellite communications applications
Support bring up, integration, and debug in the lab using logic analyzers, scopes, and other instrumentation
Participate in system level trade studies, FPGA utilization, design and code reviews
Maintain and control FPGA code revision history
Create clear documentation and support test, validation, and production efforts
Work autonomously with little instruction to solve well-defined problems