Staff Engineer, FPGA Design (R5347)

Shield AI

Dallas , Texas , United States
VHDL Verilog SystemVerilog FPGA HDL
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Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly motivated FPGA Design Engineer with experience developing high-performance digital designs.

The ideal candidate will be responsible for designing, implementing, verifying, and debugging FPGA-based solutions for complex avionics solutions for cutting-edge Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).  This role requires strong digital design fundamentals, experience with AMD/Xilinx development tools, and the ability to collaborate across hardware, firmware, and software teams.

What you'll do:
  • Design and develop FPGA-based communication modules for advanced UAV platforms.
  • Develop solutions that enable precise timing synchronization and redundance across flight controllers.
  • Integrate FPGA solutions with system-level architecture in collaboration with cross-functional engineering teams.
  • Perform synthesis, implementation, timing closure, bitstream generation.
  • Debug, test, and optimize for reliability, latency, and throughput.
  • Collaborate with PCB designers during board bring-up and hardware validation.
  • Contribute to FPGA architecture discussions and help define long-term technical direction within the platform. 
  • Participate in design reviews and maintain engineering documentation. 
    • Required qualifications:
  • B.S., M.S, PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) discipline, such as Aerospace, Mechanical, or Electrical Engineering
  • Strong experience with FPGA design, implementation, and verification using VHDL or SystemVerilog.
  • Demonstrated ability to build reliable, high-performance digital communication systems.
  • Solid understanding of timing closure, clock domain crossing, and system-level integration.
  • Comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment with evolving requirements.
  • Strong debugging and problem-solving skills.
  • Knowledge of FPGA timing analysis and timing closure techniques.
  • Familiarity with version control tools such as Git.
  • Strong debugging and problem-solving skills.
    • Preferred qualifications:
  • Experience with Xilinx FPGA ecosystem (Vivado, toolchains, etc).
  • In-depth understanding of ethernet and network stack implementation.
  • Experience developing flight computers
  • Experience designing solutions for safety-critical real-time systems.
  • Experience with AXI4, AXI-Stream, and memory-mapped interfaces.
  • Experience using TCL scripting to automate FPGA build flows.
  • Knowledge of CI/CD practices for FPGA development.

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