Rocket Lab · 7 hours ago
Senior Firmware Engineer II/Principal Engineer (FPGA)
Chantilly, VA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
8+ years expRocket Lab is an end-to-end space company delivering responsive launch services and spacecraft design. The Senior Firmware Engineer II/Principal Engineer will support the U.S. Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture by designing FPGAs for advanced Electro-Optical technology.
AerospaceManufacturingSoftwareSpace Travel
No H1B
Security Clearance RequiredU.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Work with the hardware design team on requirements
Complete FPGA logic design, coding, simulation, and testing
Support hardware and software development teams in bring-up and test of products
Provide subject-matter expertise regarding design and automated test development procedures to customers and production support team
Perform research and analysis of data, such as customer proposed specifications, datasheets, or manuals to determine design approach and/or feasibility
Execute debugging of the design in the lab
Perform synthesis, implementation, and timing analysis
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in computer engineering or electrical engineering or equivalent discipline with 8-12 years of experience
Experience in FPGA firmware design with VHDL
Ability to obtain and maintain an U.S. Government security clearance
Bachelor's degree in computer engineering or electrical engineering or equivalent discipline with 12+ years of experience
Experience in FPGA firmware design with VHDL
Ability to obtain and maintain an U.S. Government security clearance
Preferred
Experience with Xilinx/AMD Versal architecture
Experience with FPGAs and embedded systems in a radiation environment, including SEU/SEL impact and mitigation
Experience in FPGA- or ASIC-based image processing algorithms
Experience in both creating IP from scratch in RTL and integrating existing IP into RTL and block designs
Familiarity with C, Python or MATLAB and/or experience translating algorithms from a scripted language to HDL
Experience with software interfaces including interrupts and DMA
Experience with DDR4, Aurora, and high-speed transceiver design and verification
Familiarity with AXI Stream and AXI Memory Mapped interfaces
PCB design and schematic capture and layout with tools such as Altium Designer
Active TS/SCI security clearance
Company
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is an aerospace company that provides launch services, spacecraft design, and manufacturing of satellite components.
1001-5000 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1.98BKey Investors
Canadian Space AgencyU.S. Department of CommerceTrinity Capital
2025-12-09Grant
2025-09-15Post Ipo Equity· $750M
2024-11-25Grant· $23.9M
Leadership Team
Adam Spice
Chief Financial Officer
Frank Klein
Chief Operations Officer
Recent News
2026-01-19
2026-01-18
Company data provided by crunchbase