Senior Principal FPGA Design Engineer

Job Title

Senior Principal FPGA Design Engineer

Role Summary

Work on FPGA designs for the Electronic Combat Solutions Hardware Engineering Group, supporting designs through all phases: requirements input, architecture, RTL implementation, synthesis, place-and-route, timing closure, verification support, lab test and debug, and product sustainment.

The role requires close, in-person collaboration and is full-time onsite to support hardware lab activities and team integration.

Experience Level

Senior - typically 8+ years of relevant experience.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include hands-on FPGA design, verification support, and mentoring within the hardware engineering team.

• Assist with requirements generation and translate higher-level requirements into design architecture and micro-architecture.
• Own RTL coding (VHDL or Verilog), synthesis, place-and-route, and timing closure.
• Develop basic test benches and support verification activities.
• Perform lab testing, hardware bring-up, and debug of FPGA designs.
• Provide product support post-delivery and modify or extend legacy designs as needed.
• Mentor junior engineers and collaborate with cross-functional teams.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills, security eligibility, and work characteristics.

• 8+ years of relevant FPGA/ASIC design experience.
• Current Secret clearance or ability to obtain one; U.S. citizenship required.
• Experience with VHDL or Verilog HDL.
• Familiarity with Xilinx Vivado or Intel/Altera Quartus toolflows.
• Digital simulation experience with ModelSim/Questa.
• Strong experience with static timing analysis and clock-domain crossing techniques.
• Experience with high-speed interfaces (SERDES, PCIe, DDR2/3/4, LVDS).
• Familiarity with revision control systems (GIT, CVS, ClearCase, Subversion, etc.).
• Ability to write or use scripts (Perl, Tcl, Python, shell) for build or automation tasks.
• Strong debugging, problem-solving, and communication skills; self-starter and team player.
• Willingness and ability to mentor others.
• Travel: under 10%.

Nice-to-have

• Experience leading a design team.
• Experience modifying and enhancing legacy FPGA designs.
• Hands-on hardware lab debug and interaction with FPGA design verification teams.
• Experience with data conversion techniques (ADC/DAC).

Education Requirements

Posting specifies a bachelor's degree is required; an advanced degree can reduce the years-of-experience requirement. Specific fields of study were not listed in the posting.

About the Company

Company: BAE Systems

Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

Global defense, aerospace and security company delivering products and services for air, land and naval forces, advanced electronics, cyber and intelligence solutions, and space and mission systems for government and commercial customers.