Senior Principal FPGA Engineer

RTX•Huntsville, AL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Effector Guidance Electronics department develops electronics for weapon system products and is responsible for the architecture, design, and documentation of deliverable FPGA embedded processing. The Senior Principal FPGA Engineer leads FPGA development for major vendors and device families, including AMD/Xilinx, Altera, and Microchip. Designs support applications such as gigabit serial interfaces, RF and EO signal processing, controls, data links, embedded processing, and processor interfaces. The engineer collaborates with circuit card designers, systems engineers, software engineers, and program management throughout the development lifecycle—from requirements definition and architecture through integration, test, and production release. The work includes modeling algorithms, partitioning designs, coding, simulation, place and route, and verification using directed and constrained-random testing. The role also leads FPGA-based system architecture, creates design documentation, manages configuration, and may lead large integrated or cross-product teams on moderate to large multi-year programs. This is a 100% onsite, U.S.-based role in Huntsville, Alabama. U.S. citizenship and an active DoD Secret clearance are required; the candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. Relocation assistance is available.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) field and a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience.
Experience architecting FPGA-based systems, including determining parts and interfaces.
At least 10 years of experience in at least 7 of these areas: digital design and HDL coding for configurable logic devices; delivery of FPGA solutions for system-level applications; FPGA devices and associated tools from Altera, Lattice, Microchip, or AMD; electronics integration and debug using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, or similar equipment; FPGA timing constraints and timing closure; digital simulation tools such as Questa or RivieraPro; industry-standard interfaces and protocols such as AXI, PCIe, SPI, or I2C; Python or C programming; and working with intellectual property cores.
U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government-issued security clearance.
Active and existing DoD Secret clearance required after day one.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of radar processing techniques.
Knowledge of image processing techniques for visual and infrared sensors.
Experience with gigabit serial interfaces and multi-gigabit transceivers.
Experience with embedded processors and system-on-chip development for FPGA devices.
Knowledge of embedded systems design using MicroBlaze, Nios, or ARM processors.
FPGA design experience in a Linux-based development environment.
Knowledge of Git and GitHub.
Knowledge of encryption and decryption standards such as AES, RSA, and ECC.
Embedded systems design using ARM processors.
Experience with verification using hardware platforms.
Experience with system-level FPGA requirements specification and architecture development.
Ability to identify project, program, and system relationships and potential impacts.
Cross-disciplinary knowledge such as software, systems, or modeling.
Motivation to learn and contribute in a fast-paced team environment.
Ability to work independently and complete tasks with minimal oversight.
Practical knowledge of project management.
Familiarity with the Linux environment and commands.
Leadership experience, such as team lead, technical lead, or project lead.
Proposal experience, including basis-of-estimate generation, resource identification, and constraint-based schedule planning.
Master’s or Ph.D. in Electrical or Computer Engineering.

Responsibilities

Design and deliver production-quality FPGA releases, from proof of concept through production.
Collaborate with systems, hardware, and software engineers and program management to ensure product success.
Lead FPGA-based systems architecture and design, including selection of parts and definition of interfaces.
Design and code in VHDL for reliability, maintainability, reviewability, and reusability.
Verify designs with self-checking directed and constrained-random tests, tracking functional and code coverage.
Establish processes and operational plans for projects, and solve complex problems that may be undefined or difficult to investigate.
Create and maintain requirements, verification plans, user guides, and configuration-management documentation.
Support designs from requirements definition through integration and test.
Translate system-level requirements into FPGA requirements.
Conduct and participate in internal and external technical reviews.
Drive projects independently and execute to program schedules and budgets.
May lead large integrated or cross-product teams on moderate to large multi-year programs.