Field Applications Engineer (FAE)

191 Altera Corporation; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 187,000 - 271,000; Full time

Job summary

Altera is seeking a highly skilled Field Applications Engineer (FAE) to support customers adopting its FPGA, SoC, and embedded solutions. You will partner with customers, sales teams, and product engineering to drive design‑ins, accelerate time‑to‑market, and ensure customers realize the full value of Altera’s technology portfolio.

This customer‑facing role is technically deep, requiring strong RTL/FPGA background, high‑level design knowledge, and the ability to communicate complex concepts

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in FPGA design, digital logic design, embedded systems, or applications engineering.
• Strong proficiency in RTL (Verilog/VHDL), timing analysis, synthesis, and FPGA implementation flows.
• Experience with high‑speed interfaces (PCIe, DDR, Ethernet), embedded processors, or board‑level design.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and customer‑facing skills.
• Ability to travel to customer sites as needed.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical interface for customers evaluating and designing with Altera FPGAs, SoCs, IP, and software tools.
• Understand customer architectures, performance requirements, and design constraints to recommend optimal device families, IP blocks, and development flows.
• Deliver technical presentations, hands‑on workshops, and product demonstrations tailored to customer needs.
• Guide customers through feasibility analysis, device selection, and early‑stage design decisions.
• Support customers through the full design cycle — from concept and RTL development to timing closure, power optimization, and board bring‑up.
• Develop reference designs, application notes, and best‑practice guides to accelerate customer success.
• Collaborate with internal engineering teams to reproduce issues, validate fixes, and influence roadmap priorities.

Skills

RTL Verilog/VHDL

Timing analysis

Synthesis

FPGA implementation

High-speed interfaces

Embedded processors

Customer-facing communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field

Master’s degree in a related field (preferred)

Tools

Quartus (Altera/Intel)

Platform Designer

Altera IP portfolio

Job description

Job Details

Altera is seeking a highly skilled Field Applications Engineer (FAE) to support customers adopting our industry‑leading FPGA, SoC, and embedded solutions. In this role, you will partner closely with customers, sales teams, and product engineering to drive successful design‑ins, accelerate time‑to‑market, and ensure customers realize the full value of Altera’s technology portfolio. This is a customer‑facing, technically deep role ideal for engineers who enjoy solving complex system‑level challenges and influencing next‑generation semiconductor designs.

Key Responsibilities

• Customer Engagement & Technical Leadership
  • Serve as the primary technical interface for customers evaluating and designing with Altera FPGAs, SoCs, IP, and software tools.
  • Understand customer architectures, performance requirements, and design constraints to recommend optimal device families, IP blocks, and development flows.
  • Deliver technical presentations, hands‑on workshops, and product demonstrations tailored to customer needs.
  • Guide customers through feasibility analysis, device selection, and early‑stage design decisions.
• Design‑In Support & Problem Solving
  • Support customers through the full design cycle — from concept and RTL development to timing closure, power optimization, and board bring‑up.
  • Troubleshoot complex issues involving FPGA logic, embedded processors, high‑speed interfaces, memory subsystems, and power architectures.
  • Develop reference designs, application notes, and best‑practice guides to accelerate customer success.
  • Collaborate with internal engineering teams to reproduce issues, validate fixes, and influence roadmap priorities.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with sales teams to support opportunity qualification, competitive positioning, and technical strategy.
  • Provide structured feedback to product management and engineering on customer requirements, emerging use cases, and competitive trends.
  • Represent Altera at customer meetings, industry events, and technical conferences.
• Technical Expertise & Thought Leadership
  • Maintain deep knowledge of Altera’s FPGA architectures, Quartus toolchain, IP portfolio, and embedded software ecosystem.
  • Stay current on industry trends in AI/ML acceleration, high‑performance compute, networking, automotive, and industrial applications.
  • Mentor internal teams and contribute to technical enablement programs.

Salary Range

$187K - $270.7K USD

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in FPGA design, digital logic design, embedded systems, or applications engineering.
• Strong proficiency in RTL (Verilog/VHDL), timing analysis, synthesis, and FPGA implementation flows.
• Experience with high‑speed interfaces (PCIe, DDR, Ethernet), embedded processors, or board‑level design.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and customer‑facing skills.
• Ability to travel to customer sites as needed.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Hands‑on experience with Altera/Intel Quartus, Platform Designer, and associated IP.
• Familiarity with AI/ML acceleration, DSP, or hardware/software co‑design.
• Experience supporting enterprise customers or large‑scale deployments.
• Strong debugging skills using logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and embedded debug tools.

Job Type

Regular

Shift

Shift 1 (United States of America)

Primary Location

San Jose, California, United States

Posting Statement

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation, or ordinance.

Applicants must be eligible for any required U.S. export authorizations.

About Altera

Altera: Accelerating Innovators

Altera provides leadership programmable solutions that are easy‑to‑use and deploy in applications from cloud to edge, offering limitless AI possibilities. Our end‑to‑end broad portfolio of products including FPGAs, CPLDs, Intellectual Property, development tools, System on Modules, SmartNICs and IPUs provide the flexibility to accelerate innovation. Altera is helping to shape the future through pioneering innovation that unlocks extraordinary possibilities for everyone on the planet.