Senior Emulation & FPGA Prototyping Engineer

Blue Origin; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 323,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401(k) with company match

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Blue Origin’s Emerging Systems unit is developing a ground-up pre-silicon emulation and prototyping platform for high-throughput satellite communications. You will lead RTL, FPGA, and emulation toolflows while coordinating with RF, DSP, and lab teams to validate end-to-end signal paths and data integrity on real hardware.

The role emphasizes building scalable build/integration workflows, evaluating emulation/prototyping platforms, and delivering nightly image services with thorough documentation

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in Electrical or Computer Engineering or equivalent experience.
• Hands-on FPGA toolchains and emulation platforms experience.
• Strong RTL skills in SystemVerilog/Verilog and debugging.
• Experience defining and deploying FPGA prototyping or emulation flows.
• Proficiency in Tcl, Python for build automation and CI.
• Experience lab bring-up, test instrumentation, and debug.
• Ability to work across cross-site, multidisciplinary teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and build Blue Origin's pre-silicon emulation and prototyping capability from the ground up.
• Develop platform strategy, flows, and infrastructure; lead tradeoff studies for capacity, build turnaround, debug visibility, and cost.
• Evaluate platform choices, including Palladium, Veloce, ZeBu, Protium, and HAPS; advise on boards and custom solutions.
• Own end-to-end build flow: partitioning, synthesis, constraints, implementation, timing closure for large designs.
• Adapt designs for platform: clock/reset restructuring, memory model substitution, IP replacement with platform equivalents.
• Define rate-reduction strategy for DSP/beamforming prototyping; establish fidelity criteria.
• Build hardware-in-the-loop platforms connecting DSP/beamforming datapaths to real converters, RF front ends, and antennas.
• Establish a nightly build service with versioning, release notes, and rollback; define qualification tests.
• Develop transactors, speed bridges, host-side software, and test harnesses connecting designs to models and lab equipment.
• Manage platform capacity, scheduling, and allocation; forecast needs against milestones.
• Debug at platform level: signal capture, waveform tracing, transaction-level debug; triage failures with teams.
• Collaborate with RF, antenna, and DSP teams on lab integration and end-to-end validation.
• Produce user documentation and onboarding material.

Skills

SystemVerilog

FPGA prototyping

Tcl scripting

Python scripting

RTL debugging

CI integration

Education

BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering

MS in Electrical/Computer Engineering

PhD in related field

Tools

Palladium

Veloce

ZeBu

Protium

HAPS

Job description

Blue Origin’s Emerging Systems unit is developing a ground-up pre-silicon emulation and prototyping platform for high-throughput satellite communications. You will lead RTL, FPGA, and emulation toolflows while coordinating with RF, DSP, and lab teams to validate end-to-end signal paths and data integrity on real hardware.

The role emphasizes building scalable build/integration workflows, evaluating emulation/prototyping platforms, and delivering nightly image services with thorough documentation