JOB SPECIFICATION – Senior FPGA / DSP Engineer

(Permanent – Bristol – Onsite)

Senior FPGA Engineer (RFSoC / DSP)

Bristol | 5 Days Onsite | Salary Negotiable (£80k+ for the right candidate)

An innovative and fast-growing RF sensing technology company in Bristol is seeking a Senior FPGA Engineer to play a key technical leadership role within a high-performance engineering team.

This company delivers cutting-edge distributed sensing systems used in border protection, subsea monitoring, rail infrastructure, and environmental sensing. Their products operate at the intersection of RF acquisition, real-time FPGA processing, and AI-driven analytics.

This is a hands-on role for an ambitious engineer who thrives on solving complex technical challenges and wants to influence both architecture and engineering methodology.

The Technology

RFSoC (integrated ADC acquisition)
Heavy front-end FPGA signal processing (performance-critical)
High channel count acoustic data streaming
Integration with NVIDIA platforms for machine learning

You will work on real-world deployed systems where performance, determinism, and signal fidelity matter.

Responsibilities

Design and implement high-performance FPGA architectures using Xilinx RFSoC
Develop and optimize DSP algorithms in FPGA fabric
Work closely with RF, hardware, and ML teams
Drive improvements in development methodology and process
Mentor and support a small, experienced engineering team
Contribute to system-level architecture decisions
Participate in hardware bring-up and bench testing

This role is approximately 80% hands-on technical work with additional leadership and process ownership responsibilities.

Required Experience

Experience with Xilinx RFSoC and/or Software Defined Radio systems
Strong understanding of DSP fundamentals (must understand the math behind the algorithms)
Experience implementing high-resource, performance-critical FPGA designs
Ability to optimize for throughput, latency, and hardware constraints
Experience working closely with hardware in lab/bench environments
Eligible to obtain SC clearance

Desirable Experience

MATLAB for DSP modeling
Multi-channel acquisition systems
High-speed data interfaces
Experience in defense, RF systems, or sensing applications
Experience improving engineering processes or mentoring engineers

Working Environment

5 days per week onsite in Bristol (required due to hardware interaction)
High-performing, technically strong small team
Direct impact on real-world deployed systems
Opportunity to shape technical direction in a growing business

Compensation

Salary is negotiable and flexible depending on experience. Exceptional candidates may also be considered for long-term incentive options.

FPGA Design Engineer