FPGA​/DSP Engineer - Wideband Signal Processing

Tampa, FL | On-site

Join an early-stage defense technology company developing advanced RF sensing and electronic systems for demanding operational environments. The team builds its own hardware, firmware, and signal-processing architecture from the ground up, with systems already being evaluated and deployed by government and defense customers.

We are a venture-backed defense technology startup founded by former military operators who experienced firsthand the limitations of existing electronic warfare systems. The company designs custom RF electronics, firmware, embedded systems, and software internally rather than relying primarily on packaged subsystems. The team is moving quickly from prototype systems toward broader customer deployment, creating significant ownership for engineers joining at this stage.

• Own FPGA-based signal processing from digitized RF samples through detection outputs
• Develop wideband DSP pipelines capable of processing large instantaneous bandwidths in real time
• Implement digital downconversion, filtering, polyphase channelization, FFT processing, energy detection, adaptive thresholds, CFAR techniques, and burst detection
• Build protocol-aware detection and time stamping for cellular, Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, GNSS, and other wireless signals
• Extend existing in-house processing that operates on protocol frames and subframes directly in FPGA fabric
• Implement processing for 2G, 3G, LTE, and 5G signal environments where applicable
• Develop precise hardware time stamping tied to disciplined timing references for distributed sensing and time-difference-of-arrival techniques
• Build coherent multichannel processing that preserves phase information for angle-of-arrival and other localization methods
• Partner with RF and geolocation engineers to maintain synchronization and signal integrity across multiple channels
• Design high-throughput data paths using JESD
  204B/C, AXI, DMA, Ethernet, PCIe, or comparable interfaces
• Support high-rate transfer of IQ data, detections, timestamps, and metadata to downstream processing systems
• Partition workloads across FPGA fabric, embedded ARM processors, and edge compute hardware based on latency, bandwidth, and processing requirements
• Drive timing closure on dense, high-utilization FPGA designs
• Own simulation, verification, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and regression coverage
• Develop and maintain bit-accurate reference models using Python, MATLAB, or similar tools
• Debug designs directly on hardware using scopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, and other RF test equipment
• Reuse and adapt internal FPGA IP where it improves schedule without compromising performance or maintainability
• Help establish reusable FPGA architecture, coding standards, and verification practices as the engineering team grows

• BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of FPGA development experience focused on DSP, SDR, communications, radar, or similar real-time systems
• Strong VHDL, Verilog, and/or System Verilog experience
• Hands-on experience with AMD/Xilinx development environments including Vivado
• Demonstrated ability to close timing on complex, high-utilization FPGA designs
• Experience shipping streaming DSP implementations such as DDCs, filters, FFTs, channelize rs, detectors, or similar signal-processing blocks
• Experience with Zynq Ultra Scale+, RFSoC, MPSoC, or comparable heterogeneous FPGA platforms
• Strong understanding of AXI-based architectures, DMA, memory interfaces, and high-throughput data movement
• Experience with JESD
  204B/C or similar high-speed…