Senior Specialist, FPGA Digital Design Electrical Engineer

L3Harris Technologies, Inc.; Bristol Township (Bucks County); On-site; USD 93,000 - 172,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and disability insurance

401(k) match

Flexible spending accounts

Employee assistance program

Job summary

L3Harris Technologies, Inc. in Bristol, PA seeks a Senior Specialist, FPGA Digital Design Engineer to develop FPGA firmware for airborne telemetry, RF, and secure comms.

You will translate system requirements into FPGA architectures, implement in VHDL, and collaborate with RF, systems, and software teams to ensure robust, production‑ready designs. The role requires a Bachelor’s degree with at least 6 years of related experience (or higher degrees with fewer years) and the ability to obtain a

Job description

Job Title: Senior Specialist, FPGA Digital Design Engineer

Job Code: 46047

Job Location: Bristol, PA

Job Schedule: 9/80- employees work 9 out of 14 days- totaling 80 hours- and have every other Friday off

Job Description:

The FPGA Digital Design Engineer supports the development of field‑programmable gate array (FPGA) firmware for airborne telemetry, radio frequency (RF), secure communications, and embedded flight‑safety systems developed at L3Harris’s TRF Bristol site. This role contributes to the design, implementation, verification, and integration of advanced digital telemetry, signal processing, instrumentation, and encryption functions used in ruggedized mission‑critical embedded hardware. The position works closely with electrical, RF, systems, and software engineering teams to translate system‑level requirements into FPGA architecture and very‑high‑speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) implementations. The successful candidate will join a collaborative engineering organization focused on delivering high‑reliability solutions supporting United States and allied aerospace and defense platforms.

Essential Functions:

• Support estimation, planning, and scheduling of FPGA development activities across the full product lifecycle.


• Translate system and circuit‑card‑level requirements into FPGA requirements, specifications, and architectures.


• Implement FPGA designs in VHDL, ensuring proper synthesis, timing closure, constraint management, resource efficiency, and platform‑specific optimization.


• Verify FPGA functionality through simulation, then integrate and test designs on targeted circuit card assemblies in airborne and ruggedized environments.


• Develop digital signal processing and communication‑oriented FPGA functions such as filtering, mixing, signal conversion, encoding, and error‑correction.


• Follow, apply, and refine disciplined firmware development processes, peer reviews, and documentation practices.


• Generate clear technical documentation including design review materials, block diagrams, interface documents, and test plans and procedures.


• Collaborate closely with RF, systems, electrical, and software engineers to ensure clean digital‑to‑RF and digital‑to‑system integration.


• Prepare FPGA designs for production readiness by supporting qualification, environmental testing, and performance validation.


• Ability to obtain and maintain a United States Secret security clearance.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 6 years of relevant engineering experience; or a graduate degree and a minimum of 4 years of related experience; or, in lieu of a degree, a minimum of 10 years of related engineering experience.

Preferred Additional Skills:

• Minimum four years of experience with VHDL development, FPGA design methodologies, and FPGA toolchains.


• Experience implementing FPGA designs with demanding timing, routing, or resource constraints.


• Experience integrating FPGA designs onto circuit card assemblies and using laboratory equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and signal generators.


• Experience with at least one major FPGA vendor platform such as AMD (Xilinx), Intel (Altera), or Microchip (Microsemi).


• Experience with digital circuit design, schematic generation and PWB layout.


• Experience designing FPGA‑based hardware for ruggedized airborne, secure communications, telemetry, or RF applications.


• Experience verifying FPGA implementations against MATLAB or Simulink system‑level models.


• Experience developing FPGA‑based digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms for modulation, demodulation, filtering, or signal conversion.


• Experience with multiple FPGA toolsets (Vivado, Quartus, Libero) and embedded‑system integration.


• Experience supporting qualification, environmental testing, and performance validation for high‑reliability hardware.


• Experience with secure communications or encryption‑related FPGA processing.


• Familiarity with embedded microcontrollers or mixed FPGA‑processor architectures.

In compliance with pay transparency requirements, The salary range for this role in Pennsylvania is $92,500 - $171,500. This is not a guarantee of compensation or salary, as final offer amount may vary based on factors including but not limited to experience and geographic location.

L3Harris also offers a variety of benefits, including health and disability insurance, 401(k) match, flexible spending accounts, EAP, education assistance, parental leave, paid time off, and company-paid holidays.

• health and disability insurance


• 401(k) match


• flexible spending accounts


• EAP


• education assistance


• parental leave


• paid time off


• company-paid holidays

#LI-CS3

L3Harris Technologies is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. L3Harris is committed to treating all employees and applicants for employment with respect and dignity and maintaining a workplace that is free from unlawful discrimination. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, citizenship status, characteristic or membership in any other group protected by federal, state or local laws. L3Harris maintains a drug-free workplace and performs pre-employment substance abuse testing and background checks, where permitted by law.

Please be aware many of our positions require the ability to obtain a security clearance. Security clearances may only be granted to U.S. citizens. In addition, applicants who accept a conditional offer of employment may be subject to government security investigation(s) and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

By submitting your resume for this position, you understand and agree that L3Harris Technologies may share your resume, as well as any other related personal information or documentation you provide, with its subsidiaries and affiliated companies for the purpose of considering you for other available positions.

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