Senior FPGA Engineer

Job Title

Senior FPGA Engineer

Role Summary

Join the satellite development team to design and deliver FPGA-based programmable logic for orbiting satellites. Work spans architecture, HDL/RTL implementation, verification, lab testing, and deployment into operational and future missions.

Work areas include high-speed communications, imaging sensor interfaces, radio spectrum sensing, and onboard compute acceleration.

Experience Level

Senior — typically 5+ years of FPGA or ASIC design experience.

Responsibilities

Deliver FPGA solutions across design, verification, testing, and deployment; collaborate with systems, software, and partners to meet mission requirements.

• Develop FPGA programmable logic across the full lifecycle: feasibility, architecture, design spec, HDL/RTL implementation, verification, bitstream generation, and lab testing.
• Translate mission concepts and system requirements into robust, well-documented FPGA designs.
• Design signal processing pipelines, control logic, data routing networks, encryption/processing accelerators, and high-speed interfaces.
• Define and evolve on-satellite compute architecture for communications, SDR, sensing, and imaging applications.
• Expand and maintain a library of reusable, configurable IP blocks and tailor IP for mission needs.
• Apply industry best practices for FPGA development, verification, and timing/resource optimization.
• Maintain and improve FPGA build environment, scripting, CI/CD workflows, build servers, and lab test infrastructure.
• Support integration with system software and hardware during lab and flight preparations, and continuously integrate updates into operational missions.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience; followed by concise nice-to-have items.

• 5+ years of FPGA or ASIC design experience with strong Verilog or SystemVerilog expertise in logic design, simulation, and verification.
• Deep understanding of synchronous and asynchronous logic design, timing constraints, and resource trade-offs.
• Familiarity with IP design and integration, system-on-chip practices including network-on-chip architectures, memory systems, and efficient data packetization.
• Proficiency scripting FPGA build, simulation, verification and using version control in a Linux environment.
• Ability to write software interfaces within Linux to integrate FPGA logic with onboard systems and expose compute to OS/user space.
• Experience with bitstream generation, lab testing, and deploying FPGA designs into operational hardware.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to document technical decisions and lead complex discussions.

Nice-to-have

• Experience implementing/debugging high-speed digital comms interfaces (e.g., Ethernet), clock recovery, and synchronization.
• Experience with raw image data processing, stitching, and lossless compression.
• Knowledge of radio comms, modulation, channel coding, error control, and DSP.
• Familiarity with antenna design for multi-channel RF systems and SDR solutions (e.g., GNU Radio).
• Experience integrating FPGA logic with AMD (Xilinx) MPSoC or RFSoC platforms.

Education Requirements

B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.

About the Company

Company: Muon Space

Headquarters: Mountain View, CA, United States

Muon Space is an end-to-end space systems provider that designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations to deliver mission-critical Earth observation and remote sensing data. Founded in 2021, the company develops integrated satellite hardware, payloads, and operations with a Silicon Valley manufacturing facility for rapid, scalable deployment.