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Position Description:
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a prestigious research and development organization that plays a vital role in the study of the universe. Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) is a nonprofit organization that manages and operates the NRAO under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The Observatory is a hub for technological and scientific collaboration, operating state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. The Observatory has been instrumental in the study of black holes, galaxies, and the early universe.
The Central Development Laboratory (CDL) at the NRAO is seeking an experienced FPGA System Architect (Electronics Engineer) to join its digital design team. The engineer will lead the technical execution, integration, and deployment of a digital signal processing system for a next-generation radio telescope synthesis array, guiding the system through implementation, design reviews, integration, and operational deployment while supporting requirements refinement as needed.
CDL's digital design team develops advanced digital signal processing systems that enable radio astronomy research, supporting scientific studies of galaxy formation, the origins of stars and planets, and black holes.
The selected candidate will lead the technical development and execution of FPGA-based systems, with an emphasis on high-throughput digital signal processing, including digitized receiver data acquisition, calibration processing, and frequency channelization. The role combines system-level technical ownership with hands-on FPGA development responsibilities, including RTL development and system integration activities as required.
Working within a small, centralized team, the engineer will collaborate across internal groups and provide technical leadership for systems shared with the international scientific community. The role requires strong time management, the ability to manage multiple concurrent efforts, effective cross-disciplinary communication, and the ability to balance system-level ownership with hands-on development responsibilities.
The location for this position will be based at the Central Development Laboratory in Charlottesville, Virginia.
What You Will be Doing:
- Lead the architecture, design, integration, and deployment of the antenna-side FPGA-based digital signal processing system.
- Define subsystem decomposition, interfaces, and data flow across FPGA processing elements, embedded software, timing and synchronization systems, digitizers, and external data transport systems
- Lead subsystem design reviews and contribute to system-level design reviews
- Document system architectures, interfaces, design decisions, and verification approaches
Work Environment
Work is mission driven, team oriented and typically performed in an office setting within a research or development environment.
Who You Are:
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
- Eight years of experience developing complex FPGA-based digital signal processing systems
- Experience leading the architecture, development, integration, and deployment of FPGA-based systems
- Experience defining system architectures, subsystem interfaces, and data flows across FPGA processing, embedded software, and external system interfaces
- Experience with timing and synchronization concepts for high-throughput FPGA systems
Skills and Competencies
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to coordinate technical efforts across multiple teams
- Strong leadership ability and
- Attention to detail is critical
Additional Requirement
Observatory employees must be authorized to work in the United States. The Observatory presently cannot sponsor H-1B Visas for this position.
Total Rewards:
Compensation
The starting salary of this position is between $114,000-$162,000. Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include; education, experience, skills, competencies, other qualifications of the successful candidate, as well as internal equity and labor market conditions.
Benefits:
Associated Universities, Inc (AUI) offers a comprehensive benefits package addressing the needs of employees and their families with most benefits beginning on the first day of employment, subject to eligibility requirements. AUI provides:
- Excellent paid time off (13 holidays, annual accrual of up to 24 vacation days)
- Medical, dental and vision plans are effective on the first day of employment.
- AUI’s retirement benefit contributes an amount equal to 10 percent of a qualified participant’s base pay with no required employee contribution.
- Click Total Rewards for more information.
Application Instructions:
Select the “Apply” button above. Please be prepared to upload your current Resume and a Cover Letter describing interest and suitability for the position.
Equal Opportunity Employer Statement:
AUI is an equal opportunity employer. To view our complete statement, please visit https://public.nrao.edu/careers/. If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, you may submit your request by sending an email to [email protected]. PM20
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field
- Eight years of experience developing complex FPGA-based digital signal processing systems
- Experience leading the architecture, development, integration, and deployment of FPGA-based systems
- Experience defining system architectures, subsystem interfaces, and data flows across FPGA processing, embedded software, and external system interfaces
- Experience with timing and synchronization concepts for high-throughput FPGA systems
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to coordinate technical efforts across multiple teams
- Strong leadership ability
- Strong attention to detail
- Authorization to work in the United States
What We Do
Developed over the past seven years in collaboration with 60,000 human agents, Apollo is a breakthrough language model for objective-oriented conversational agents. Apollo replaces the transformer architecture of traditional LLMs with a neuro-symbolic architecture that couples the conversational skills of generative AI with the predictability and actionability of rule-based AI, making it better suited for agents. Companies of any kind can fine-tune the Apollo base model on a specific task and deploy conversational agents that work on their behalf. These fine-tuned agents can continuously improve from human feedback, which is integrated into their updated versions. They further feature fine-grained control, the capacity to adhere to the deploying company’s policies and a white-box view of their operations. With native tool use, defined scope and guardrails and superior steerability, Apollo Agents outclass LLM Agents across all conversational use-cases. Apollo does not train on company data, instead, it can be pre-integrated with any number of internal systems, and seamlessly call the relevant API endpoint whenever necessary. Like transformer-based LLMs, Apollo has a “system prompt”, broken down to structured, conditional policies. Workflows and tools are native to Apollo and do not rely on function calling or chaining. This enables 100% success rate in executing complex API calls and the ability to return grounded answers in each interaction from any number of endpoints or sources. Unlike transformer-based LLMs, Apollo is fine-tuned at the interaction level. In the Simulator, companies can generate automated conversations simulating the agent in production in front of users. They then proceed to fine-tuning the agent by correcting its output in each unsatisfactory interaction. This process can be repeated continuously to improve the performance and alignment of the agent. Unlocked with Apollo are some exciting new agentic use-cases, including the ability for companies to responsibly communicate with their customers using conversational AI, and to sell their products and services without the need for human involvement, the example featured in the Live Demo Agent.
