Hardware Designer

Fidus is a global high-tech design firm headquartered in Ottawa, with additional design centres in Kitchener-Waterloo and San Jose. We specialize in leading-edge electronic product development, with hardware, embedded software, FPGA/ASIC, and signal integrity teams working together to design and deliver next‑generation products for clients in emerging technology markets.

The Hardware Designer plays a key role in architecting and delivering complex, high‑performance electronic systems for Fidus clients. You will work closely with customers and cross-functional teams (FPGA, software, SI/PI) to define system and board‑level architectures, design high‑speed circuits, and support full product development from concept through bring‑up and validation.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys tackling challenging, high‑speed designs (DDR, PCIe, Ser Des), working across the full hardware lifecycle, and collaborating in multidisciplinary environments. You take pride in delivering robust, production‑ready designs and mentoring others while maintaining a high standard of engineering quality and documentation.

At Fidus, you’ll work on high‑speed, high‑complexity electronic systems, often using emerging technologies before they reach the broader market. You’ll collaborate across FPGA/DSP, hardware, embedded software, verification, SI/PI, PCB layout, and mechanical/thermal design as part of cross‑functional teams delivering real products for our clients.

In practice, that means contributing to projects in areas such as space and satellite systems, next‑generation communications and networking, high‑performance compute and storage platforms, advanced video, imaging, VR/AR applications, and industrial, medical, and automotive systems. You won’t be limited to a single product or industry—your work will follow the technology, not just one roadmap.

• Develop the system and board level architectural design, but working collaboratively with the software and FPGA programmers to analyze requirements
• Provide schematic design and component selection for high‑speed circuits, Ser Des to 32
  
  Gbps, control circuits, power supply sequencing, inter‑board connectors, and memory busses
• Conduct design simulations using LTSpice and prove circuits using prototype bench tests
• Work with the Signal Integrity team to ensure a detailed analysis of critical nets
• Participate in design reviews (Signal Integrity, PCB Layout, FPGA coding, Software) to ensure Fidus quality standards are met
• Perform parts library creation and schematic capture, including embedded layout constraints, using OrCAD Capture CIS
• Develop comprehensive test plans and test procedures
• Lab bring‑up and in‑depth verification of hardware prototypes
• Actively collaborate with the team to address hardware & software integration issues
• Lead regulatory certification testing
• Generate technical and user documentation
• Provide pre‑project technical support to the business and sales teams on project scope, schedule, effort estimates, and deliverables, and post‑project technical support to customers
• Act as a mentor and sounding board to junior and intermediate electronic designers.

• Minimum 5 years of direct electronics design experience
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or equivalent.
• Ability to lead a design technically and as a mentor
• Strong fundamental knowledge of high‑speed circuit and multi‑layer PCB design
• In depth understanding of all aspects of the hardware product development cycle including requirements, architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, signal integrity, verification, and manufacturing
• Background in FPGA designs, including 32
  
  Gbps diff pairs, power/thermal design
• Experience with high‑speed devices and protocols including DDR4, PCIe Gen4, MIPI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB‑C, HDMI, Ser Des and JESD
  204B.
• Experience with development tools such as Cadence CIS/Orcad/Cadence Allegro
• Experience using optical test sets, signal analyzers, and GHz+ oscilloscopes for analysis of eye diagrams, phase noise, and overall signal quality
• Hands‑on debugging experience involving scopes, VNAs, signal…