Senior FPGA Engineer

Job Title

Senior FPGA Engineer

Role Summary

Lead the architecture, development, and lifecycle ownership of high-performance FPGA-based systems used in mass spectrometry instrumentation. Serve as a technical authority across electrical, firmware, software, mechanical, and systems teams to drive new product development and production support.

Experience Level

Senior — typically 10+ years of FPGA design experience in complex embedded systems.

Responsibilities

Accountable for end-to-end FPGA system design, verification, and production readiness.

• Define and lead FPGA architecture for high-performance data acquisition and control systems.
• Drive system-level design decisions with cross-functional engineering teams.
• Lead FPGA development from concept through production release, including NPI and sustaining support.
• Own timing closure, resource optimization, power management, and performance tuning.
• Develop RTL using VHDL, Verilog, and/or SystemVerilog; perform modeling, simulation, synthesis, place & route, constraint development, and timing analysis.
• Implement and integrate high-speed interfaces (PCIe, DDR, LVDS, Ethernet, SPI, I2C) and SoC FPGA architectures where applicable.
• Define and execute verification strategies; develop simulation environments and regression frameworks.
• Lead board bring-up, hardware integration, system validation, and production troubleshooting; perform root-cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Mentor junior engineers and establish coding, documentation, and verification best practices.
• Contribute to long-term FPGA technology roadmaps and continuous improvement of design standards and tool flows.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for immediate contribution.

• 10+ years of FPGA design experience in complex embedded systems.
• Expert proficiency in VHDL and/or Verilog/SystemVerilog.
• Deep experience with FPGA toolchains (Intel/Quartus and/or Xilinx Vivado).
• Strong expertise in timing closure, constraint management, and system integration.
• Proven experience integrating FPGA designs into hardware platforms and supporting products through production and sustaining phases.
• Strong analytical, debugging, and root-cause analysis skills.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience in scientific instrumentation, analytical equipment, or precision measurement systems.
• Familiarity with MATLAB/Simulink (HDL Coder/System Generator), High-Level Synthesis (HLS), or FPGA-based signal processing pipelines.
• Experience with high-speed data acquisition systems.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field is required; Master’s degree is preferred.

About the Company

Company: Thermo Fisher Scientific

Headquarters: Waltham, MA, United States

Thermo Fisher Scientific provides analytical instruments, laboratory equipment, reagents, software, and services for healthcare, life sciences, and industrial customers, including mass spectrometry, chromatography, and clinical diagnostics.