Staff FPGA Engineer

Vector Atomic•Pleasanton, CA

About The Position

Vector Atomic, an IonQ company, is building quantum technology to transform navigation, timing, geophysical exploration, and telecommunications. Our team of engineers, scientists, software developers, and operations professionals works together to solve complex challenges and turn bold ideas into real-world solutions. We value collaboration, curiosity, and diverse perspectives, and we give every team member the opportunity to make an immediate impact while growing their skills. If you’re excited to work on breakthrough technology in a fast-paced, hands-on environment, we’d love to hear from you. We are looking for a highly skilled Staff FPGA Engineer to join our team. The successful candidate will be instrumental in designing and implementing FPGA-based instrument systems for the next generation of advanced quantum sensors. This role initially focuses on research and development with the goal of translating prototypes into scalable commercial products. We are looking for individual contributors who can take ownership of their projects while supporting the team's overall goals. Candidates should have strong technical experience and enjoy working collaboratively in a dynamic, interdisciplinary team.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical discipline.
Minimum 7 years of relevant FPGA engineering experience for candidates with EE degrees; 10+ years for other technical degrees.
To comply with the US export control laws, Vector Atomic employees must be U.S. citizens (born or naturalized), lawful U.S. permanent residents (green card holders), and certain categories of refugees, and asylees.
Proven ability to work effectively in laboratory environments.
Strong verbal and written communication skills.
Expertise in HDL programming (Verilog and/or VHDL) for synthesizable RTL and verification.
Experience with FPGAs with AMD Zynq and AMD Ultrascale+, including RFSoc devices.
Proficiency using EDA tools such as Vivado and Questa.
Solid understanding of hardware signal processing techniques such as digital filters, decimators, PID, etc
Hands-on experience with laboratory test and measurement instruments (oscilloscopes, power supplies, pulse generators, logic and protocol analyzers).
Ability to collaborate with hardware engineers on FPGA/SoC PCB board designs.
Experience writing timing constraints (SDC) to achieve timing closure on high-speed FPGA designs.
Familiarity with common communication protocols (SPI, I2C, AXI, Avalon, Ethernet, AMBA, Wishbone).
Skilled in scripting for EDA tools, preferably TCL and Python.
Understanding of practical RTL design issues such as latency, jitter, metastability, setup/hold timing, and multicycle paths.
Familiarity with revision control and issue tracking software like Git and Jira.

Nice To Haves

Experience with formal verification methodologies and languages (PSL, SystemVerilog, UVVM, UVM, or OVM).
Experience working with designs for challenging environmental deployments, including LEO
Experience creating custom Linux builds using Yocto, PetaLinux, or OpenEmbedded.
A background with managing CI/CD systems, virtualization and deployment technologies.

Responsibilities

Collaborate with physicists, electronics engineers, and optical designers to define system requirements and select appropriate FPGA/SoC components along with supporting ICs.
Design and contribute to custom PCB layouts integrating modern FPGA/SoC devices. Identify critical design challenges affecting PCB layouts to ensure robustness.
Develop synthesizable RTL code using Verilog or VHDL, create test benches, and prepare EDA tool support to meet performance targets.
Lead FPGA board bring-up integration and test activities. Develop test scripts. Compile validation documentation.
Mentor early-career engineers on best practices
Collaborate with the manufacturing team on the release of production-ready code.