Lead FPGA Design Engineer
About The Position
About @Orchard LLC is seeking an experienced FPGA Design Engineer to support a client in the aerospace and space technology industry. This hands-on, on-site position is located in San Jose, California. The Bus Electronics team designs, verifies, and supports manufacturing of avionics, power, and analog electronics for spacecraft ranging from pLEO to deep space, serving national defense, Earth observation, communications, and interplanetary exploration. The role leads FPGA design for next-generation avionics systems, including high-speed communications, payload processing, data handling, memory blocks, and sensor interfaces. The engineer owns FPGA development from concept through implementation, qualification, production, satellite integration, and flight, collaborating closely with hardware, software, and other cross-functional teams. The position includes technical leadership in requirements and design decisions, development of reliable digital designs, and validation and troubleshooting of avionics hardware.
Requirements
- Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field.
- At least 8 years of FPGA design experience.
- Proficiency in designing, implementing, and simulating RTL in SystemVerilog and/or VHDL.
- Proficiency configuring hard and soft IP, writing custom IP, and integrating third-party IP.
- Experience with FPGA synthesis, place-and-route, multi-clock architectures, and timing closure.
- Experience with fault tolerance and single-event-effect mitigation strategies such as TMR, ECC, and scrubbing.
- Experience interfacing with hardware and software design teams and selecting FPGA/SoCs to meet current and future roadmap requirements.
Nice To Haves
- 15 or more years of FPGA design experience.
- Experience with multiple FPGA vendors or families, such as AMD Xilinx Versal and Microchip RTAX/RTG4.
- Experience with prototyping bring-up, test benches, and validation.
- Experience designing FPGAs for avionics systems in space, defense, or other high-reliability systems.
- Experience with SerDes, SpaceWire, Ethernet, LVDS, or RS-422/485.
- Experience with FPGA configuration management.
Responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership and recommendations for system trades, requirements capture, part selection, and design choices and their implications.
- Own FPGA development through design, production, satellite integration, and on-orbit performance.
- Develop high-performance, reliable FPGA designs addressing fault tolerance, timing closure, and high-speed communications.
- Support design bring-up with hardware and software teams.
- Document engineering test and qualification plans.
- Execute hardware validation through benchtop and environmental testing, including troubleshooting and root-cause investigations of anomalous behavior.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including digital, software, power, and PCB layout, to drive project success.
Benefits
- Paid time off.
- Health and welfare insurance.
- 401(k) plan.
- Incentive-eligible compensation, with a target based on contribution, company performance, and/or individual results.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
