FPGA Team Leader

Thales; Tubeke; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Thales is seeking an experienced FPGA Team Leader in Tubize, Belgium, to steer a 250+ FPGA engineers across RF, C4ISR, and crypto domains. You will drive architecture decisions, ensure timely milestones, and coach a diverse team in a fast-paced environment.

Join a global engineering group with room for personal development, international collaboration, and an emphasis on flexible, high-performance solutions for secure digital systems.

Qualifications

• Strong FPGA experience – minimum 10 years in an engineering role.
• Technical Leadership with team management in an engineering environment.
• Strong proficiency in VHDL coding and hands-on lab work.
• Experience with interfaces/protocols: AXI/AMBA, PCIe, Ethernet, SPI/I2C, JESD.
• Clear communication and effective priority management in fast-paced settings.
• Ability to conduct reliability analysis (MTBF/MTTF).
• Guide FPGA engineers in digital circuit design and practice.
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum and engineering delivery metrics.
• Experience in performance optimization and power considerations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of FPGA engineers, setting workload and growth plans.
• Resolve technical issues in VHDL coding, hardware debugging and timing failures.
• Own the technical direction for FPGA development including architecture and verification strategies.
• Coordinate with system, hardware, software/embedded, verification and manufacturing teams.
• Ensure quality and reliability through structured verification and coding standards.
• Maintain documentation including requirements traceability, design decisions and test plans.
• Identify risks and mitigation strategies, maintaining project milestones.

Skills

FPGA leadership

Team management

VHDL coding

Communication protocols

Reliability analysis

Digital circuit design

Agile/Scrum

Performance optimization

Tools

AXI/AMBA protocols

PCIe

Ethernet

SPI/I2C

JESD

Job description

Location: Tubize, Belgium

Thales people architect solutions at the heart of the defence-security continuum. Interoperable and secure information and telecommunications systems for defence, security, and civil operators, are based upon innovative use of radiocommunications, networks, and cybersecurity. We are ground breaking new digital technologies such as 4G mobile communications, cryptography, cloud computing and big data for use in physical protection systems, and critical information systems.

Thales people architect solutions at the heart of the defence-security continuum. Interoperable and secure information and telecommunications systems for defence, security, and civil operators, are based upon innovative use of radiocommunications, networks, and cybersecurity. We are ground breaking new digital technologies such as 4G/5G mobile communications, cryptography, cloud computing and big data for use in physical protection systems, and critical information systems.

You will join a team of 250+ colleagues recognized by domestic and international partners for their expertise in Radio Frequency (RF) Products, C4ISR, Crypto Global Solutions, MACS (Aeronautical Intercom), and more.

We are seeking an experienced FPGA Team Leader to lead a team of FPGA experienced engineers.

In this role, you will be responsible for coordinating FPGA development activities, ensuring delivery of technical milestones, guiding engineering best practices, and collaborating closely with system, software, verification, and hardware teams to deliver robust FPGA-based solutions.

Your mission:

• Lead and manage a team of FPGA engineers, including workload, priorities, and supporting individual performance and growth.
• Resolve technical issues and support troubleshooting, including VHDL coding, debugging hardware, timing failures, and integration defects.
• Own the technical direction for FPGA development, including architecture decisions, coding standards, verification approaches, and integration strategy.
• Coordinate with cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., system engineering, hardware design, software/embedded, verification, manufacturing/operations).
• Ensure quality and reliability through structured verification, review processes, and adherence to coding and design best practices.
• Maintain documentation (requirements traceability, design documentation, decision making, test plans and strategies…).
• Identify risks and mitigation strategies.

What we are looking for:

• Strong FPGA experience – min 10 years.
• Technical Leadership and managing team in an engineering environment.
• Strong proficiency in VHDL coding and hands-on lab experience
• Working experience of communication interfaces and protocols (e.g., AXI/AMBA, PCIe, Ethernet, SPI/I2C, JESD).
• Ability to communicate clearly and manage priorities effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to perform reliability analysis (MTBF, MTTF)
• Ability to guide FPGA engineers in Digital circuit design
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum practices and engineering delivery metrics.
• Experience with performance optimization (throughput, latency, resource utilization) and power considerations.

Nice to have:

• Strong problem-solving, debugging, and failure analysis skills
• Clear communication of technical concepts (written and verbal) across different levels
• Strong analytical thinking and curiosity for technology
• Innovative mindset and willingness to learn
• Team player with an interest in international collaboration
• Flexibility to join projects at different stages
• Good command of English; French and/or Dutch is a plus

YOUR CAREER AT THALES

Future opportunities will allow you to discover other domains or sites. You will be able to evolve and grow your competencies in different areas:

Room and attention to personal development

Build your talents in another domain of Thales Group, discovering new products, new customers, new country or go to a more complex Solution

Choose between a technical expertise or a leadership path

Build an international career within a leading Engineering Group

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.