Senior FPGA Engineer II — Spacecraft Firmware

Rocket Lab Corporation; California; On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Rocket Lab is seeking a Senior FPGA Engineer II for a future opening to join our FPGA team based out of Long Beach, CA. This role focuses on development and verification of FPGA firmware designs for avionics in our spacecraft programs and requires collaboration across engineering disciplines.

You will work through the full firmware lifecycle—from requirements to testing—and have opportunities to test systems on orbit. Candidates should have deep FPGA experience and citizenship as required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical, computer, or software engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of FPGA firmware development experience.
• Proficiency in VHDL.
• Strong FPGA design fundamentals and principles.
• U.S. citizenship is required due to program requirements.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with other engineering disciplines to develop firmware architecture and requirements.
• Design and verify FPGA firmware for Xilinx and Microchip FPGA/SoC devices.
• Develop documentation for FPGA operation and interfacing with software and FPGA systems.
• Participate in test campaigns from unit to system level.

Skills

VHDL

FPGA fundamentals

US citizenship

Education

Bachelor's degree in electrical, computer, or software engineering

Master's or PhD in electrical/computer/software engineering (nice to have)

Tools

Xilinx devices/tools

Microchip devices/tools

UVM

VUnit

GIT

JIRA

CI/CD

Job description

Rocket Lab is seeking a Senior FPGA Engineer II for a future opening to join our FPGA team based out of Long Beach, CA. This role focuses on development and verification of FPGA firmware designs for avionics in our spacecraft programs and requires collaboration across engineering disciplines.

You will work through the full firmware lifecycle—from requirements to testing—and have opportunities to test systems on orbit. Candidates should have deep FPGA experience and citizenship as required.