Position – Senior Digital Signal Processing Engineer NRF-SARAO

Contract & Location

Contract type: Permanent
Job Level: Management
Work Location: Cape Town, Western Cape
Closing date: 6 July 2026

The National Research Foundation (NRF) supports and promotes research and human capital development through funding, the provision of National Research Facilities and science outreach platforms and programmes to the broader community in all fields of science and technology, including natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) spearheads South Africa’s activities in the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, commonly known as the SKA, in engineering, science and construction. SARAO is a National Facility managed by the National Research Foundation and incorporates radio astronomy instruments and programmes such as the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in Gauteng, the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry (AVN) programme in nine African countries as well as the associated human capital development and commercialisation endeavours.

The Senior Digital Signal Processing Engineer drives or supports the overall design and development of radio astronomy focused Digital Signal Processing products and applications owned by the Data Processing & Pipelines Department within the Engineering & Technology Development Division. The Digital Signal Processing Engineer brings expertise in FPGA development and digital signal processing to enable development and delivery of data processing products and applications.

Depending on operation requirements, this role may either be more architecturally focused or more implementation focused, but will be responsible for elements of both.

The Senior Digital Signal Processing Engineer works closely with peers across functional engineering groups and key stakeholders to ensure satisfactory delivery of the Data Processing & Pipelines Department’s systems and products.

• Architectural design and/or implementation of digital signal processing (DSP) products and applications for Radio Astronomy digital signal processing systems that satisfy higher-level system functional and performance requirements
• Design of these products contains elements of digital signal processing system design, FPGA development, software development and high-speed data transport
• Support analysis, definition, integration, verification and validation activities of DSP products at various system levels
• Development of software to control, monitor, debug and support operation of the developed products and applications
• Drive, follow and support the relevant Systems Engineering processes for product development throughout the entire product or application lifecycle from conceptualisation through to decommissioning
• Support deployment, maintenance, upgrades, operation and decommissioning of developed products
• Manage, support and coordinate resources to ensure delivery of products within project constraints
  
  Drive and participate in the generation of technical system and product-related documentation applicable to developed DSP products to support the delivery and handover of the Data Processing & Pipelines Groups products
• Drive and participate in Research & Development initiatives within the domain of expertise to develop novel ideas for future products and contribute to the overall continuous development of the group

Qualification:

• B.Tech (Eng) (NQF
  7) in Electrical, Electronics or Mechatronics Engineering with 13+ years relevant experience
• B.Eng/B.Sc (Eng) (NQF
  8) in Electrical, Electronics or Mechatronics Engineering with 9+ years relevant experience
• MSc / M.Eng (NQF
  9) in Electrical, Electronics or Mechatronics Engineering with 7+ years relevant experience
• PhD (NQF 10) in Electrical, Electronics or Mechatronics Engineering with 5+ years relevant experience

Experience:

• Experience as a DSP or FPGA Engineer with a track‑record of designing and implementing complete digital signal processing systems on FPGA-based hardware using HDL or other design tools
• Experience in both designing digital signal processing systems at a higher,…