Principal FPGA Engineer

The role

You will lead the architecture, design, and implementation of FPGA systems for autonomous drones and public safety products. This includes developing video pipelines, sensor interfaces, and real-time processing systems.

What you will do

• Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of FPGA systems for video, sensor, and communication pipelines.
• Develop and optimize logic for high-speed digital interfaces such as MIPI CSI/DSI, LVDS, HDMI, PCIe, and Gigabit Ethernet.
• Implement memory controllers, DMA engines, and streaming architectures to support real-time data transfer.
• Optimize FPGA designs for performance, power efficiency, and resource utilization.
• Collaborate with hardware, software, and systems teams to ensure seamless FPGA integration into embedded platforms.
• Implement FPGA acceleration for real-time image signal processing (ISP) and video enhancement pipelines.

Required qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of FPGA design and development experience in complex systems.
• Expert proficiency in Verilog, VHDL, and/or SystemVerilog.
• Strong background with FPGA vendor tools such as Xilinx Vivado, Intel Quartus, and ModelSim/QuestaSim.
• Experience with Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ or similar SoC/FPGA chipsets.
• Proven ability in high-speed digital design, timing closure, and FPGA resource optimization.
• Hands-on experience with board-level bring-up, lab instrumentation, and debugging complex FPGA systems.

Nice to have

• 10+ years of FPGA design and development experience in complex systems.
• Familiarity with video/image signal processing hardware implementation.
• Familiarity with computer vision and perception algorithms and their hardware acceleration on FPGA.
• Experience optimizing video and sensor processing chains for low latency in autonomous systems.
• Experience with embedded processor integration (e.g. ARM cores, MicroBlaze, Nios II, or RISC-V).
• Experience with OpenGL.
• General experience with hardware acceleration of algorithms on modern GPU architectures.
• Knowledge of DDR memory systems, SERDES, and multi-gigabit transceivers.
• Experience developing FPGA systems for aerospace, defense, or safety-critical applications.
• Track record of leading technical projects and mentoring engineering teams.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans for employees and their families
• 401K plan
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Flexible Time Off (Exempt) / Paid time off (Non-Exempt)
• Flexible work environment
• Orca pass (for those in Puget Sound)
• Free snacks, drinks and espresso (Seattle office)

About the company

BRINC is a vertically integrated U.S. drone technology company that designs and manufactures unmanned aircraft systems, autonomous drone stations, command-and-control software, and advanced autonomy for public safety.