Senior FPGA Engineer, Digital Signal Processing

Relativity Space; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 148,000 - 222,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

PTO & sick leave

Parental leave

Learning stipend

Job summary

Relativity Space is seeking an FPGA engineer on the Avionics team to analyze, design, and test FPGA firmware for Terran R. You will oversee FPGA development through the product lifecycle and work with cross-functional teams to enable rapid iteration and reliable hardware.

A strong candidate has deep experience in electronics design, DSP/SDR, and a track record of delivering complex FPGA projects for aerospace systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years FPGA development with DSP/SDR experience for mission-critical systems.
• Strong grounding in digital communications theory and DSP fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Analyze, design, and test custom FPGA firmware for Terran R launch vehicle.
• Oversee FPGA development across multiple products through the lifecycle (concept to flight).
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure reliable hardware and on-schedule delivery.
• Support design verification, qualification, and vehicle operations.

Skills

FPGA development

DSP/SDR applications

Digital communications theory

FPGA toolchains

VHDL/Verilog/SystemVerilog

High-Level Synthesis

JESD204B/C interfaces

Hardware bring-up & debugging

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering

Tools

SpinalHDL

Chisel

Vitis

SystemC

Simulink

Job description

At Relativity Space, we’re building rockets to serve today’s needs and tomorrow’s breakthroughs. OurTerran R vehicle will deliver customer payloads to orbit, meeting the growing demand for launchcapacity. But that’s just the start. Achieving commercial success with Terran R will unlock newopportunities to advance science, exploration, and innovation, pioneering progress that reaches beyondthe known.

Joining Relativity means becoming part of something where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level. Here, you're not just executing tasks; you're solving problems that haven’t been solved before, helping develop a rocket, a factory, and a business from the ground up. Whether you’re in propulsion, manufacturing, software, avionics, or a corporate function, you’ll collaborate across teams, shape decisions, and see your work come to life in record time. Relativity is a place where creativity and technical rigor go hand in hand, and your voice will help define the stories we’re writing together. Nowis a unique moment in time where it’s early enough to leave your mark on the product, the process, andthe culture, but far enough along that Terran R is tangible and picking up momentum. The mostmeaningful work of your career is waiting. Join us.

About the Team:

The Avionics team is responsible for the full lifecycle of Terran R’s nervous system, designing, building, testing, installing, and operating the hardware that connects and controls every major electrical system on the vehicle and ground. The team leverages close partnership between avionics design, manufacturing, and test to enable rapid iteration and feedback loops. Engineers are deeply embedded into other functions within Relativity, working closely with propulsion, GNC, fluids, and stage engineering teams to ensure seamless integration and operation. Now is a unique time to join: you’ll get to help shape Terran R's fundamental avionics architecture and be given a high degree of ownership on components that will fly.

About the Role:

As an FPGA engineer on the digital electronics team, you will analyze, design, and test custom FPGA firmware on the Terran R launch vehicle. You will oversee development for FPGAs across multiple products through the entire product lifecycle from concept to flight maturity to include initial design, board bring-up, design verification, qualification, initial flight production, integration, and vehicle operations. You will work with cross-functional partner teams across the company to help the team make the best possible decisions for the overall vehicle. A strong candidate for the role will have a deep technical background in electronics design and sound project management skills to ensure the hardware project is both reliable and on-schedule to support Terran R's launch!

About You:

• Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience in FPGA development with a meaningful portion in DSP/SDR applications for mission-critical systems such as launch vehicles, spacecraft, aircraft, or robotics
• Strong grounding in digital communications theory: modulation schemes, matched filtering, synchronization (timing/carrier recovery), equalization, and forward error correction
• Proficiency in DSP fundamentals: multirate signal processing, filter design, FFT-based processing, and fixed-point quantization analysis
• Technical expertise in FPGA development across the full lifecycle — RTL design, verification, synthesis, timing analysis, and bring-up/validation — with algorithms implemented in VHDL, Verilog, or SystemVerilog
• Familiarity with one or more code generation or High Level Synthesis (HLS) languages including SpinalHDL, Chisel, Vitis, SystemC, or Simulink
• Experience with high-speed data converter interfaces (JESD204B/C or similar) feeding DSP pipelines
• Experience with hardware bring-up, validation, debugging, and data analysis
• Familiarity with a wide variety of FPGA toolchains and SoC platforms across industry leaders like AMD Xilinx, Intel, Microchip, etc.

Nice to haves but not required:

• Experience with SDR frameworks or platforms (USRP, RFSoC, GNU Radio) or custom SDR hardware
• Familiarity with algorithm modeling tools (MATLAB, Simulink, or Python/NumPy) for pre-RTL algorithm development
• Familiarity with RISC-V development toolchain (e.g. linker scripts, compilers)
• Familiarity with rigorous software development processes including version and configuration control, change traceability, code coverage analysis, CI/CD build pipelines, etc.

At Relativity Space, we are committed to transparency and fairness in our compensation practices. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and other job-related factors.

Compensation is only one part of our total rewards package. Relativity Space offers competitive salary and equity, a generous PTO and sick leave policy, parental leave, an annual learning and development stipend, and more!To see some of the benefits & perks we offer, please visit here.

Hiring Range:

$148,000 — $222,000 USD

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at [e-mail].