Senior FPGA Signal Processing Engineer

Position Title: Senior FPGA Signal Processing Engineer 
Requisition ID: 1871
Position Location: Fairfax, VA
Position Reports To: Senior Manager, FPGA Engineering
Supervises Others: No

At Trident Systems Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, we believe in the power of using strong engineering principles to drive innovation and solve complex problems. We foster a culture of rigorous engineering and continuous improvement, leveraging the full knowledge of our organization through collaborative product development processes that include design and peer reviews. We combine our expertise in space electronics with right-sized development processes to create innovative, high-performance space-based electronic systems that meet our customers' evolving needs.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Senior FPGA Signal Processing Engineer (Image/Video and Compression) will play a critical role in the design and development of advanced FPGA-based imaging and data compression solutions supporting space-based electronic systems. This position is responsible for architecting, implementing, and verifying complex, high-speed programmable logic designs for systems that process, analyze, and compress image and video data.

The ideal candidate brings strong expertise in image and video processing and compression algorithms, with the ability to understand existing approaches, evaluate their suitability, and modify or tune them for specific application needs, rather than developing entirely new algorithms from scratch. They have a proven track record of translating these algorithms into efficient FPGA implementations, building high-throughput, low-latency data-processing pipelines on FPGAs; performing fixed point conversion and hardware optimization; validating numerical accuracy and output quality against golden algorithm models; and collaborating across hardware, firmware, and software teams to deliver mission-critical solutions to DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Work within a multi-discipline team of engineers designing advanced processing, imaging, sensor, RF, networking, and data storage solutions for space applications, utilizing the latest FPGA technologies (with a strong emphasis on AMD (Xilinx) devices such as Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC, and Versal ACAP).
• Architect FPGA-based pipelines for image/video or other sensor data processing and compression, including data acquisition, pre-processing, transformation, compression, and output formatting for space-based systems.
• Analyze existing image/video processing and compression algorithms (often developed in MATLAB or similar environments), understand their operation and performance characteristics, and adapt or tune them for specific application, performance, and implementation constraints.
   • Use MATLAB (and optionally Simulink or similar tools) to evaluate and refine existing algorithms, establish golden reference models for output quality, rate/distortion behavior, and numerical accuracy, and support their translation into hardware implementations.
• Translate MATLAB-level algorithms and specifications into FPGA architectures by:
  • Partitioning functionality between FPGA logic, embedded processors, and other accelerators.
  • Performing fixed-point analysis, quantization, and word-length optimization.
  • Mapping algorithms to DSP blocks, memory structures, and streaming data paths.
• Create and maintain complete FPGA designs using VHDL or Verilog and, when applicable, Vivado IP Integrator, with emphasis on efficient data-path architecture, deterministic latency, and high-throughput implementations.
• Code, simulate, and verify a wide range of RTL modules for FPGAs including:
  • DSP-oriented processing blocks (filters, transforms, resampling, and related operations).
  • Compression and decompression modules based on standard or custom approaches.
  • Control logic and interfaces to external peripherals and sensors or other data sources.
• Create and maintain comprehensive simulation testbenches (e.g., SystemVerilog) to:
  • Verify functional correctness of processing and compression modules.
  • Compare FPGA results against MATLAB golden models.
  • Achieve high code coverage and regression robustness.
• Develop and maintain IP-core-level and top-level design documentation, interface control documents, and performance/quality reports.
• Participate in and lead code reviews and design reviews.
• Collaborate closely with hardware and software engineers throughout integration to ensure processing and compression designs are correctly implemented, configured, and controlled at the system level, including driver/software API definition where needed.
• Support system verification in an electronic lab environment, including data capture, evaluation of processing and compression performance, and system-level debug using FPGA ILA-based tools (Vivado HW Debugger, Chipscope, SmartDebug).
• Provide technical leadership on imaging and compression architectures across multiple programs, influencing technology roadmaps, IP reuse strategies, and standard algorithmic approaches within Trident SES.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related technical degree
• Minimum of 6 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree OR 4 years of experience with a master’s degree
• Experience implementing signal processing algorithms (preferably related to image/video processing and/or data compression) in FPGA hardware, including fixed-point conversion, resource and throughput optimization, and validation against algorithmic models.
• Ability to understand, analyze, and adapt existing algorithms for specific applications and constraints.
• Experience with RTL logic design and coding using VHDL or Verilog
• Experience with MATLAB or similar algorithmic modeling tools.
• Highly productive, self-motivated person able to contribute as an individual and work within a distributed team

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing with Xilinx (AMD) FPGAs using Vivado or ISE
• Experience designing with Microsemi (Microchip) FPGAs using Libero
• Experience with logic simulation tools such as Modelsim/Questasim and/or Aldec
• Familiarity with lab test equipment such as logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, etc.
• Experience using revision control systems, such as Git
• Linux
• C/C++
  

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $97,000 - $180,000

Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits 

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
• Medical 
• Dental 
• Vision
• Basic life with AD&D
• Short term disability
• Long term disability
• Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
• Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position. 

Trident Systems is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected].

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.