Senior FPGA Engineer

Job Title

Senior FPGA Engineer

Role Summary

Design, implement, verify, and support FPGA firmware for Terran R avionics across the full product lifecycle from concept through flight operations. You will work on custom digital electronics, board bring-up, qualification, and vehicle integration as a member of the Avionics team.

The role requires close collaboration with propulsion, GNC, mechanical, thermal, manufacturing, and software teams to deliver integrated, flight‑ready systems.

Experience Level

Senior; typically requires 5+ years of FPGA development and high‑speed digital systems experience in mission‑critical applications (launch vehicles, spacecraft, aircraft, or robotics).

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include design, verification, and fielding of FPGA systems for vehicle avionics.

• Develop RTL and FPGA firmware using VHDL, Verilog, or SystemVerilog.
• Perform synthesis, timing analysis, place-and-route, and toolchain integration for target FPGAs/SoCs.
• Lead hardware bring-up, validation, debugging, and data analysis on prototype and flight hardware.
• Define and execute verification strategies, create testbenches, and run simulation and hardware tests.
• Support qualification, initial flight production, integration, and vehicle operations.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to ensure electrical and system-level integration.
• Manage project tasks and schedule to meet milestones and flight readiness requirements.

Requirements

Must-have technical qualifications and experience for immediate contribution.

• 5+ years of FPGA development and high‑speed digital systems experience in mission‑critical applications.
• Proven expertise across RTL design, verification, synthesis, timing analysis, and bring-up/validation.
• Practical experience with HDLs (VHDL, Verilog, SystemVerilog) and FPGA toolchains.
• Experience with hardware bring-up, board-level debugging, instrumentation, and data analysis.
• Experience working with highly cross-functional engineering teams to deliver integrated electronics.
• Familiarity with industry FPGA/SoC platforms (AMD Xilinx, Intel, Microchip, or similar).

Nice-to-have:

• DSP experience for RF applications (FEC, channel estimation, modulation schemes).
• Experience with HLS or code-generation tools (SpinalHDL, Chisel, Vitis, SystemC, Simulink).
• Familiarity with RISC-V toolchains (linker scripts, compilers) and embedded processors.
• Experience with rigorous software development practices: version control, change traceability, code coverage, CI/CD.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field (as stated). No certifications or alternative-degree language specified.

About the Company

Company: Relativity Space

Headquarters: Long Beach, CA, USA

Relativity Space is an aerospace company developing rockets and automated manufacturing for orbital launch services. The company builds the Terran R launch vehicle and integrates in-house design, avionics, propulsion, and factory automation to accelerate rocket development and iteration.