Principal / Lead Hardware Engineer

Morson Edge; Slip End; On-site; GBP 112,000 - 152,000; Full time

Job summary

Morson Edge is seeking a Principal/Lead Hardware Engineer for a major defence programme in the UK. You will work on advanced electronic systems for air, land and maritime platforms, focusing on FPGA and processor-based hardware throughout the lifecycle.

You will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-performance hardware, support environmental/EMC tests, and produce technical documentation.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in high-speed digital hardware within defence/aerospace or regulated industries.
• Proven FPGA/SoC-based hardware design experience.
• Experience with multilayer PCBs and high-speed interfaces.
• Hands-on board-level debugging with scopes and logic analysers.
• Ability to translate system requirements into robust hardware designs.
• Experience integrating hardware with firmware and software.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop complex digital and mixed-signal hardware.
• Develop FPGA/SoC/processor-based architectures.
• Create schematics and support PCB layout for high-speed designs.
• Validate interfaces like DDR, PCIe, and Ethernet.
• Integrate hardware with embedded software and FPGA solutions.
• Conduct simulation, verification, and qualification activities.
• Support hardware bring-up, debugging, and fault investigations.
• Collaborate with Systems, Software, Firmware, RF, Mechanical teams.

Skills

High-speed digital hardware

FPGA/SoC design

PCB design

Signal integrity

Hardware debugging

Embedded firmware/software integration

Tools

Altium Designer

OrCAD

Xpedition

Job description

The Opportunity

Principal / Lead Hardware Engineer Location: Luton, Bedfordshire (LU1) Duration: 12 Months Onsite: 90% onsite Rate: £95.44ph UMBRELLA Security: We seek an engineer with recent high-integrity or safety-critical industry experience (defence, aerospace, or similar), or eligible for UK security clearance. The Opportunity We're looking for an experienced Principal / Lead Hardware Engineer to join a major defence programme developing advanced electronic systems for air, land and maritime platforms. This is a fantastic opportunity to work on complex FPGA and processor-based hardware, contributing throughout the full product lifecycle—from requirements capture and architecture through detailed design, integration, verification and qualification. You'll be working alongside multidisciplinary engineering teams to deliver high-performance electronic hardware for safety and mission-critical applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop complex digital and mixed-signal electronic hardware.
• Develop hardware architectures for FPGA, SoC and processor-based solutions.
• Produce schematics and support PCB layout for high-speed digital designs.
• Design and validate interfaces such as DDR memory, PCIe, Ethernet and other high-speed protocols.
• Integrate hardware with embedded software, firmware and FPGA solutions.
• Carry out simulation, verification, validation and design analysis activities.
• Support board bring-up, hardware debugging and fault investigation.
• Work collaboratively with Systems, Software, Firmware, RF, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering teams.
• Support environmental, EMC/EMI and qualification testing.
• Produce technical documentation throughout the engineering lifecycle.
• Support system integration, demonstrations and customer acceptance activities where required.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Strong background in high-speed digital hardware design within defence, aerospace or other highly regulated industries.
• Experience designing FPGA and SoC-based hardware (Xilinx, AMD, Intel/Altera or equivalent).
• Proven experience designing complex multilayer PCBs, including: High-speed serial interfaces DDR memory High-performance processors FPGA-based digital signal processing
• Experience using schematic capture and PCB design tools such as Altium Designer, OrCAD, Xpedition or equivalent.
• Hands-on board-level debugging using oscilloscopes, logic analysers and protocol analysers.
• Experience integrating hardware with embedded firmware and software.
• Strong understanding of signal integrity, power integrity and timing analysis.
• Experience supporting verification, validation and qualification activities.
• Ability to translate system requirements into robust hardware designs.

Desirable Experience

• Electronic Warfare, Radar, RF, Communications or Sensor technologies.
• Development of safety-critical or mission-critical systems.
• FPGA signal processing.
• Knowledge of DO-254, DEF STAN, MIL-STD or equivalent industry standards.
• Hardware design reviews and technical leadership.
• Design for Manufacture (DfM), Design for Test (DfT) and Design for Reliability (DfR).