Senior FPGA Engineer

We're Hiring: Senior FPGA Engineer — Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC)
Location: Pune, India (In-office)
Type: Full-time

We're building high-throughput Free Space Optical Communication systems laser-based links for [satellite / inter-satellite / ground-to-air / terrestrial backhaul] applications. We need an FPGA engineer who has actually done this before: someone who has taken an FSOC modem or link from concept through silicon, lab, and real-world deployment.
This is not a role for someone learning FSOC on the job. We're looking for hands-on, build-and-ship experience.
What you'll do
Architect and implement FPGA-based modems and signal processing chains for optical links (modulation/demodulation, FEC, acquisition, tracking, timing recovery)
Design high-speed digital logic interfacing with ADCs/DACs, optical front-ends, and pointing/acquisition/tracking (PAT) subsystems
Optimize for throughput, latency, and link budget under real atmospheric/pointing conditions
Bring up hardware in the lab and support field/range testing through to a working link
Work shoulder-to-shoulder with optics, photonics, RF, and systems engineers
What we're looking for (must-haves)
Proven, hands-on experience building FPGA systems for FSOC or closely related optical/coherent comms — shipped or deployed, not just simulated
Strong RTL design in VHDL and/or Verilog/SystemVerilog
Deep DSP-for-comms knowledge: FEC (LDPC/Reed-Solomon/Turbo), synchronization, equalization, timing/carrier recovery
Experience with high-speed interfaces (SerDes, JESD204B/C, high-speed transceivers) and multi-Gbps data paths
Comfortable with the full flow: architecture, RTL, timing closure, lab bring-up, debug (ILA/ChipScope, scopes, logic analyzers)
Track record of getting a real optical link working end-to-end
Nice to have
Experience with Xilinx/AMD (Versal, UltraScale+) or Intel/Altera FPGAs
Familiarity with PAT, beam steering, or adaptive optics
Background in satellite, aerospace, or defense comms
Knowledge of optical link budgets and atmospheric turbulence mitigation
A note on who we want
We deeply respect academic research, but this role specifically needs someone who has built and debugged real FSOC hardware that had to work outside a simulation or a paper. If you've made photons carry data across a real link and fought the bugs that come with it, we want to talk to you.
Show more Show less