Senior Specialist, FPGA Digital Design Electrical Engineer
- Location
- Bristol, PA
- Work model
- On-Site
- Level
- Senior
- Salary
- $92.5k – $171.5k/yr
Skills
About this role
L3Harris is dedicated to recruiting and developing high-performing talent who are passionate about what they do. Our employees are unified in a shared dedication to our customers’ mission and quest for professional growth. L3Harris provides an inclusive, engaging environment designed to empower employees and promote work-life success. Fundamental to our culture is an unwavering focus on values, dedication to our communities, and commitment to excellence in everything we do. L3Harris is the Trusted Disruptor in defense tech. With customers’ mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. Job Title: Senior Specialist, FPGA Digital Design Engineer Job Code: 46047 Job Location: Bristol, PA Job Schedule: 9/80- employees work 9 out of 14 days- totaling 80 hours- and have every other Friday off Job Description: The FPGA Digital Design Engineer supports the development of field‑programmable gate array (FPGA) firmware for airborne telemetry, radio frequency (RF), secure communications, and embedded flight‑safety systems developed at L3Harris’s TRF Bristol site. This role contributes to the design, implementation, verification, and integration of advanced digital telemetry, signal processing, instrumentation, and encryption functions used in ruggedized mission‑critical embedded hardware. The position works closely with electrical, RF, systems, and software engineering teams to translate system‑level requirements into FPGA architecture and very‑high‑speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) implementations. The successful candidate will join a collaborative engineering organization focused on delivering high‑reliability solutions supporting United States and allied aerospace and defense platforms. Essential Functions: Support estimation, planning, and scheduling of FPGA development activities across the full product lifecycle. Translate system and circuit‑card‑level requirements into FPGA requirements, specifications, and architectures. Implement FPGA designs in VHDL, ensuring proper synthesis, timing closure, constraint management, resource efficiency, and platform‑specific optimization. Verify FPGA functionality through simulation, then integrate and test designs on targeted circuit card assemblies in airborne and ruggedized environments. Develop digital signal processing and communication‑oriented FPGA functions such as filtering, mixing, signal conversion, encoding, and error‑correction. Follow, apply, and refine disciplined firmware development processes, peer reviews, and documentation practices. Generate clear technical documentation including design review materials, block diagrams, interface documents, and test plans and procedures. Collaborate closely with RF, systems, electrical, and software engineers to ensure clean digital‑to‑RF and digital‑to‑system integration. Prepare FPGA designs for production readiness by supporting qualification, environmental testing, and performance validation. Ability to obtain and maintain a United States Secret security clearance.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 6 years of relevant engineering experience; or a graduate degree and a minimum of 4 years of related experience; or, in lieu of a degree, a minimum of 10 years of related engineering experience. Preferred Additional Skills: Minimum four years of experience with VHDL development, FPGA design methodologies, and FPGA toolchains. Experience implementing FPGA designs with demanding timing, routing, or resource constraints. Experience integrating FPGA designs onto circuit card assemblies and using laboratory equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and signal generators. Experience with at least one major FPGA vendor platform such as AMD (Xilinx), Intel (Altera), or Microchip (Microsemi). Experience with