Principal FPGA Engineer (Electronic Warfare)

Location: North Hykeham (LN6), Lincolnshire, United Kingdom; permanent hybrid role.

Salary: Up to £70,000 per year, depending on experience.

Company

hirify.global supports Electronic Warfare Operations and works with engineers, scientists, and ex-military personnel on mission-critical customer programmes.

What you will do

• Define and implement FPGA architectures for RF signal processing, high-throughput data handling, and real-time logic.
• Develop systems on AMD/Xilinx RFSoCs, including Zynq UltraScale+, and Intel FPGAs such as Agilex, integrating high-speed ADCs and DACs.
• Lead or contribute to implementations using VHDL, SystemVerilog, MATLAB/Simulink HDL Coder, and low-level C for FPGA bring-up, testing, and integration.
• Collaborate with systems, RF, embedded software, and verification engineers to ensure end-to-end performance and compliance.
• Support laboratory testing with signal generators, spectrum analysers, and oscilloscopes.
• Drive verification, unit testing, documentation, technical reviews, solution development, and internal consultation.

Requirements

• Proven experience delivering FPGA designs for real-time, high-speed, or RF-centric systems.
• Proficiency in VHDL, SystemVerilog, and embedded C for FPGA-host integration, control, and testing.
• Experience with MATLAB/Simulink and HDL Coder for algorithm-to-hardware workflows.
• Experience developing and deploying on Xilinx RFSoC, such as Zynq UltraScale+, and/or Intel Agilex or Stratix platforms.
• Expertise with Vivado, Quartus, constraint management, simulation, and timing closure for multi-clock, high-throughput designs.
• UK National and eligible to work in the UK.
• Eligible to obtain and maintain UK Government SC-level security clearance.

Nice to have

• Embedded Linux, bare-metal C drivers, or FPGA-based system integration experience.
• Familiarity with AXI interfaces, memory interfaces, JESD204B/C, and high-speed ADC/DAC integration.
• Experience with AXI4-Stream, DMA, memory buffers such as BRAM and URAM, signal playback or recording systems, or hardware-in-the-loop testing.
• Knowledge of bitstream encryption, secure boot, anti-tamper features, data framing, tagging, and high-throughput IQ data handling.
• Experience with synthetic electromagnetic environments and related software and hardware requirements and limitations.

Culture & Benefits

• Permanent hybrid working within a collaborative Electronic Warfare Operations Support Group of more than 60 specialists.
• 25 days of annual leave, including up to 3 days of Christmas shutdown, with the option to buy or sell up to 5 additional days.
• Annual wellbeing allowance, mental health first aiders, and employee assistance support.
• Two pension schemes, private medical insurance, life assurance up to four times salary, and a Share Save scheme.
• Electric or hybrid car leasing, cycle-to-work scheme, retail discounts, and career development support.