Principal FPGA Engineer

Please Note: To conform with the United States Government Space Technology Export Regulations, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., conditional resident, asylee or refugee (protected individuals as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

At Cesium Astro
, we are developers and pioneers of out-of-the-box communication systems for satellites, UAVs, launch vehicles, and other space and airborne platforms. We take pride in our dynamic and cross-functional work environment, which allows us to learn, develop, and engage across our organization. If you are looking for hands-on, interactive, and autonomous work, Cesium Astro is the place for you. We are actively seeking passionate, collaborative, energetic, and forward-thinking individuals to join our team.

We are looking to add a Principal FPGA Engineer to our team. If you enjoy working in a startup environment, and are passionate about developing leading-edge hardware for satellites, spacecraft, and aerospace systems, we would like to hear from you.

As a Lead FPGA Research Engineer in Cesium Astro's Advanced Projects Group, and in collaboration with the senior technical trajectory team, you will be responsible for architecting, developing, maintaining and ultimately owning the company's FPGA prototyping testbed. You will also support advanced prototyping for Cesium Astro’s next-gen product development efforts. The FPGA prototyping testbed consists various types of development boards with a focus on (but not exclusive to) AMD devices (VCK
190, VMK
180, VPK
180, VEK
385, etc.) including associated test equipment (arbitrary waveform generators, oscilloscopes and logic analyzers) along with a state-of-the‑art UVMf simulation and verification environment based on a high‑performance Linux‑based compute cluster. The FPGA prototyping environment serves as an internal company resource for performing and implementing a wide variety of engineering evaluation tasks related to device performance and tooling/flow evaluations.

In this position, you will work closely with the senior technical trajectory team to perform and deliver engineering analysis related to power, thermal, device utilization and compute performance using modern space‑qualified programmable logic devices. Additionally, you will lead large‑scale cutting‑edge prototype implementations using regression‑gated Linux‑based Ci/Cd automation infrastructure.

• Develop advanced FPGA architectures, RTL designs, interface solutions, and digital hardware concepts supporting complex products, emerging technologies, and future product capabilities.
• Contribute to the development of new FPGA design principles, implementation techniques, verification methodologies, and engineering approaches that improve product performance and technical capability.
• Lead unusually complex engineering studies, design evaluations, and technical investigations requiring innovative solutions and advanced engineering expertise.
• Direct highly complex FPGA integration, hardware bring‑up, verification, debugging, qualification, and design validation activities across critical development efforts.
• Evaluate simulation results, timing closure, hardware performance, laboratory measurements, engineering risks, and system interactions while developing innovative technical solutions.
• Guide implementation of advanced verification approaches, qualification strategies, engineering improvements, and technical recommendations supporting successful product development.
• Serve as a technical advisor to engineering leadership, customers, and program teams on advanced FPGA technologies, complex engineering…