Staff HDL Hardware Engineer
Staff-level digital hardware engineer at geospatial intelligence company BlackSky, owning design of FPGA/HDL-based spacecraft avionics end to end — writing VHDL, building test benches, and doing lab bring-up, debug, and verification of satellite hardware. Hybrid role based in Tukwila, WA.
- Compensation
- $160K–$180K / yr
- Location
- Tukwila, WA
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Hardware
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- BS in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field with digital electronics design training
- 10+ years of digital design experience including HDL programming (VHDL preferred), test bench development, and prototype testing
- Experience with embedded processors in a SoC FPGA and programmable logic-processor interfaces
- Ability to write test benches using ModelSim, Vivado Simulator, or similar
- Hands-on lab experience with multi-meters, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, programmable power supplies
- Experience implementing, prototyping, and bringing up high speed interfaces
- Excellent interpersonal skills and collaborative approach in a multi-disciplinary team
- Must be a U.S. Person (ITAR/export control)
Nice to have
- Delivery of multiple products with full ownership from concept through production
- Experience with precision voltage references, oscillators, supervisory circuits, and ADCs
- Component selection experience for FPGAs, ADCs, DDR, NVRAM, high speed transceivers (LVDS, Ethernet PHYs)
- Experience with 10Gb Ethernet or PCIe
- Experience designing electronics for space environment
- Experience with Microchip and AMD/Xilinx FPGA development
- Experience designing automated test equipment using Python
- Proficiency with C, C++, Perl, Python
Full description
Staff HDL EngineerAbout Us:
BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets, and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.
In this position you will act as a hardware designer, systems engineer, HDL programmer, and test engineer. This should seem exciting, not scary, and you must welcome the challenges that come along with the responsibility of full product ownership. You will own product design, performance, verification, and implementation from initial concept definition through final operation by the end user.
To be successful in this position, you will need to be passionate about delivering exceptional products that meet or exceed requirements and enable new capabilities for satellite performance. This passion will fuel your self-motivation to push tasks to ultimate completion. You will also need to enjoy working in a collaborative environment and work daily with engineers from multiple disciplines – systems, software, mechanical, etc. You must be eager to receive and give peer feedback that enables our high performing team to be greater than the sum of its parts.
This position reports to the Director, Electrical Engineering and is a hybrid role based out of our Tukwila, WA office.
Responsibilities:
- Serve as digital hardware design engineer for spacecraft avionics, with involvement in all phases at different levels of assembly including requirements development, design, prototyping, bring-up, testing, debug, design iteration, and eventual transition to a production environment
- Synthesize design requirements from unit level and system level specifications
- Write HDL for variety of FPGAs and verify it using simulation and test
- Create test benches for your designs
- Troubleshoot performance during hardware testing/bring-up
- Create interface and design description documentation to support the Flight Software (FSW) verification and validation process
- Interface with external suppliers to develop specifications, exchange data and deliverables, troubleshoot issues, and develop integration and test approaches.