Hardware Engineer (High Performance Computing Digital Design Engineering) - Mid to Experienced [...]

CNSS • National Security Systems; Fort Meade (MD); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

NSA seeks Technical Intelligence & Science Services professionals to design, build, and validate high-performance computing systems for national security applications. Candidates will plan, design, and construct specialized equipment, and ensure adherence to rigorous engineering standards across electrical, mechanical, and systems domains.

Required degrees include Engineering or Physics with relevant coursework; experience in HDL, CAD/EDA tools, and hardware development is valued.

Qualifications

• Degree must be in Engineering, Physics, Material Science, or related field.
• For Engineering degrees, if program is not ABET accredited, it must include specified coursework.

Responsibilities

• Accelerate application performance with RTL design.
• FPGA firmware development and integration.
• PCB logic design, simulation and test.
• PCB layout and signal integrity checks.
• Modeling and simulation to evaluate design alternatives.
• Collaborate with customers to clarify needs and determine how to meet them.

Skills

Digital design

FPGA firmware

PCB design

C/C++ programming

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Physics/Materials

Tools

EDA tools

Job description

As a Technical Intelligence & Science Services professional, you will use your skills to create the systems and tools that will be used to enhance the operation of intelligence. You will advise, administer and perform scientific projects, such as planning, designing, and constructing specialized equipment, and ensuring adherence to sound engineering and scientific standards and principles. The NSA offers multiple areas of focus for facilities engineers, including computer, architectural, electrical, mechanical, and structural. In addition, we are seeking skills that include computer design, microelectronics, radio frequency design, and systems engineering.

Degree must be in Engineering, Physics, Material Science, or related field (for example, electronics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics).

For Engineering degrees, if program is not ABET accredited, it must include specified coursework.*

• Specified coursework includes courses in differential and integral calculus and 5 of the following 18 areas: (a) statics or dynamics, (b) strength of materials/stress-strain relationships, (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics, (d) thermodynamics, (e) electromagnetic fields, (f) nature and properties of materials/relating particle and aggregate structure to properties, (g) solid state electronics, (h) microprocessor applications, (i), computer systems, (j) signal processing, (k) digital design, (l) systems and control theory, (m) circuits or generalized circuits, (n) communication systems, (o) power systems, (p) computer networks, (q) software development, (r) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, or soil mechanics.

Relevant experience must be in one or more of the following:

digital equipment design; assembling computers; hardware description language (HDL); embedded software development; design verification; microarchitecture design or modeling; configuration management; design or analysis of integrated or electronic circuits; using computer-aided design (CAD) software; using electronic design automation (EDA) tools; hardware/software test plan development; development, design, assembly, test and debug, or validation of electronics systems (e.g., integrated or electronic circuits, custom multichip modules (MCMs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), high density redistribution layers, 3D multi-layer integrated technologies, or system enclosures); chemical and physical de-processing of integrated circuit (IC) devices using reactive ion etching, ion beam milling, wet chemistry, or chemical mechanical polishing (CMP); imaging of integrated circuits using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or focused ion beam (FIB) tools. Project management experience or project management certification (for example, DAWIA, PMP) may count for up to 1 year of experience.

FULL PERFORMANCE

Entry is with an Associate's degree plus 5 years of relevant experience, or a Bachelor's degree plus 3 years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree plus 1 year of relevant experience, or a Doctoral degree and no experience.

SENIOR

Entry is with an Associate's degree plus 9 years of relevant experience, or a Bachelor's degree plus 7 years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree plus 5 years of relevant experience, or a Doctoral degree plus 3 years of relevant experience. With the ever-increasing technological complexities in the world of supercomputers, we need talented computer and electrical engineers to be part of our team architecting, designing and verifying the next generation of high performance computing solutions (HPCS) that will support of our mission. Our goal is to provide supercomputers of the highest quality to ensure the success of the NSA and its partners.

The areas of responsibility may include one or more of the following:

• Accelerating application performance using Register Transfer Level (RTL) design
• Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) firmware development and integration
• RTL design closure using logic simulation, functional verification, synthesis, and timing analysis
• Printed Circuit Board (PCB) logic design, simulation and test
• PCB layout
• Signal Integrity / Power Integrity
• Commercial systems acquisition and contracting
• Create and maintain documentation on technical information
• Operate specialized scientific and technical equipment
• Attend conferences and communicate with people in a particular technical field to keep abreast of new technologies and information
• Conduct research including studies, experiments, and investigations
• Research emerging technologies for application(s) within the Agency
• Serve as a subject matter expert to support research and development efforts
• Work with customers to clarify their needs and to determine how their needs can be met
• Modeling and simulation to evaluate design alternatives The ideal candidate is someone with excellent problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal skills who is:
• Motivated
• Creative
• Able to work effectively across several different functional areas in a collaborative environment
• Well-organized and able to handle multiple assignments
• Customer service and requirements focused
• Detail oriented

Knowledge and experience in one or more of the following is desired:

• Concepts, theories, and methods for designing, analyzing, testing, and verifying large scale computational and data storage systems
• Translate conceptual designs into technical specifications
• Designing digital logic (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs)
• Experience using Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools
• Unified Verification Methodology (UVM)
• Applying engineering principles to design and layout PCBs
• Firmware development for configuring and controlling hardware devices
• Evaluate information in technical documents to understand its importance and significance
• Operate specialized scientific and technical equipment
• Applied Cryptography and Mathematics
• Programming Languages (C, C++, OpenCL, Perl, Python, TCL)
• Hardware description languages (VHDL, Verilog, SystemVerilog)
• Computer System Architecture and Design
• Computer Networks and Security
• CPU and GPU processor architectures
• Memory, interconnect, and storage architectures