Hardware Designer

Fidus Systems•Kitchener, ON

12d•CA$95,000 - CA$145,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Hardware Designer plays a key role in architecting and delivering complex, high-performance electronic systems for Fidus clients. You will work closely with customers and cross-functional teams (FPGA, software, SI/PI) to define system and board-level architectures, design high-speed circuits, and support full product development from concept through bring-up and validation. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys tackling challenging, high-speed designs (DDR, PCIe, SerDes), working across the full hardware lifecycle, and collaborating in multidisciplinary environments. You take pride in delivering robust, production-ready designs and mentoring others while maintaining a high standard of engineering quality and documentation. At Fidus, you’ll work on high-speed, high-complexity electronic systems, often using emerging technologies before they reach the broader market. You’ll collaborate across FPGA/DSP, hardware, embedded software, verification, SI/PI, PCB layout, and mechanical/thermal design as part of cross-functional teams delivering real products for our clients. In practice, that means contributing to projects in areas such as space and satellite systems, next-generation communications and networking, high-performance compute and storage platforms, advanced video, imaging, VR/AR applications, and industrial, medical, and automotive systems. You won’t be limited to a single product or industry—your work will follow the technology, not just one roadmap.

Requirements

Minimum 5 years of direct electronics design experience
Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or equivalent.
Ability to lead a design technically and as a mentor
Strong fundamental knowledge of high-speed circuit and multi-layer PCB design
In depth understanding of all aspects of the hardware product development cycle including requirements, architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, signal integrity, verification, and manufacturing
Background in FPGA designs, including 32Gbps diff pairs, power/thermal design
Experience with high-speed devices and protocols including DDR4, PCIe Gen4, MIPI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C, HDMI, SerDes and JESD204B.
Experience with development tools such as Cadence CIS/Orcad/Cadence Allegro
Experience using optical test sets, signal analyzers, and GHz+ oscilloscopes for analysis of eye diagrams, phase noise, and overall signal quality
Hands-on debugging experience involving scopes, VNAs, signal generators, electronic loads
Familiarity with ESD, EMI, and RF design considerations

Nice To Haves

Ability to use Verilog, RTL, or HLS an asset
Embraces AI as part of a modern engineering toolkit

Responsibilities

Develop the system and board level architectural design, but working collaboratively with the software and FPGA programmers to analyze requirements
Provide schematic design and component selection for high-speed circuits, SerDes to 32Gbps, control circuits, power supply sequencing, inter-board connectors, and memory busses
Conduct design simulations using LTSpice and prove circuits using prototype bench tests
Work with the Signal Integrity team to ensure a detailed analysis of critical nets
Participate in design reviews (Signal Integrity, PCB Layout, FPGA coding, Software) to ensure Fidus quality standards are met
Perform parts library creation and schematic capture, including embedded layout constraints, using OrCAD Capture CIS
Develop comprehensive test plans and test procedures
Lab bring-up and in-depth verification of hardware prototypes
Actively collaborate with the team to address hardware & software integration issues
Lead regulatory certification testing
Generate technical and user documentation
Provide pre-project technical support to the business and sales teams on project scope, schedule, effort estimates, and deliverables, and post-project technical support to customers
Act as a mentor and sounding board to junior and intermediate electronic designers.