Senior Staff FPGA Engineer

Principal / Senior Staff FPGA Engineer – Thermal Imaging & ISP
Location: Sunrise, FL
Employment Type: Full-Time, On-Site
Department: Engineering
Company Description
Pixels on Target builds high-performance thermal imaging and electro-optical systems designed for demanding, mission-critical environments. We combine advanced sensing, embedded computing, FPGA acceleration, image processing, and AI/ML technologies to deliver real-time intelligence at the edge.
Our team moves quickly from concept through production, developing highly optimized systems where image quality, latency, power consumption, size, and reliability matter. We are looking for engineers who enjoy solving difficult technical problems, taking ownership of complex systems, and turning advanced algorithms into field-ready products.
Role Description
We are seeking a Principal / Senior Staff FPGA Engineer to lead the architecture, development, and optimization of FPGA-based image processing systems for advanced thermal cameras and imaging products.
This is a senior individual-contributor role with significant technical ownership. You will architect and implement real-time Image Signal Processing (ISP) pipelines, integrate infrared imaging sensors and displays, translate image-processing algorithms into highly optimized hardware architectures, and drive FPGA designs from initial concept through verification, timing closure, hardware bring-up, and production.
The ideal candidate has deep experience building high-throughput, low-latency FPGA systems and understands how to balance image quality, FPGA resources, memory bandwidth, latency, power, and system-level constraints.
You will work closely with imaging scientists, hardware engineers, embedded software engineers, AI/ML engineers, and system engineers to develop next-generation thermal imaging platforms.
Key Responsibilities
Architect and own FPGA-based real-time ISP pipelines for thermal imaging systems from sensor input through display and downstream processing.
Design, implement, optimize, and verify complex FPGA architectures using SystemVerilog, Verilog, and/or VHDL.
Implement thermal-camera image-processing functions such as:
Non-Uniformity Correction (NUC)
Bad-pixel detection and replacement
Dynamic range compression
Automatic gain control (AGC)
Histogram-based image enhancement
Spatial and temporal filtering
Noise reduction
Image sharpening and edge enhancement
Digital zoom, scaling, cropping, and interpolation
Image registration and stabilization
Graphical overlays and video compositing
Translate MATLAB, Python, C/C++, or algorithmic reference models into efficient, deterministic FPGA implementations.
Develop highly pipelined and parallel hardware architectures optimized for throughput, latency, FPGA utilization, memory bandwidth, and power consumption.
Architect streaming video datapaths and manage buffering, clock-domain crossings, synchronization, and frame-level timing.
Integrate infrared focal plane arrays, digital video interfaces, displays, memory, processors, and other high-speed peripherals.
Lead FPGA architecture decisions, design reviews, interface definitions, and technical trade studies.
Own timing analysis and timing closure for large, complex FPGA designs.
Develop simulation environments, self-checking testbenches, assertions, and automated verification infrastructure.
Perform hardware bring-up and debug using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, embedded logic analyzers, and FPGA debug tools.
Develop Python and Tcl automation for simulation, builds, testing, regression, and FPGA tool flows.
Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to implement or accelerate computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms within FPGA-based imaging pipelines.
Work closely with PCB and hardware engineers on FPGA pinout, memory architecture, power, clocking, interfaces, and board-level design decisions.
Mentor FPGA engineers and establish best practices for architecture, RTL development, verification, timing closure, and design reuse.
Drive FPGA designs through qualification, production release, and lifecycle support.
Educational Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.
Master’s degree preferred.
Experience
10+ years of professional experience developing FPGA-based systems.
Extensive experience architecting and implementing complex, production-quality RTL.
Proven experience developing real-time image processing, video processing, computer vision, or ISP pipelines on FPGA platforms.
Strong understanding of streaming image-processing architectures and pixel-level datapaths.
Demonstrated experience optimizing algorithms through pipelining, parallelization, fixed-point implementation, memory optimization, and resource sharing.
Extensive experience performing static timing analysis and achieving timing closure in complex FPGA designs.
Experience developing sophisticated simulation and verification environments.
Experience taking FPGA designs from architecture through hardware bring-up and production.
Experience integrating imaging sensors, high-speed memory, processors, displays, and peripheral interfaces.
Professional experience with Python and scripting-based FPGA development automation.
Experience collaborating across hardware, embedded software, imaging, algorithms, AI/ML, and systems engineering organizations.
Technical Skills
FPGA & RTL
Expert-level proficiency with SystemVerilog and/or Verilog; VHDL experience also valuable.
Deep understanding of synchronous digital design, pipelining, state machines, clock-domain crossing, reset architecture, and high-throughput datapaths.
Expertise optimizing FPGA designs for:
Throughput
Latency
Resource utilization
Memory bandwidth
Timing
Power consumption
Image Processing / ISP
Strong understanding of digital image-processing fundamentals.
Experience implementing FPGA-based ISP or video-processing pipelines.
Experience with fixed-point algorithm implementation and numerical precision analysis.
Familiarity with thermal or infrared imaging strongly preferred.
Knowledge of thermal detector behavior, calibration, NUC, bad-pixel correction, AGC, and thermal image enhancement is highly desirable.
FPGA Platforms & Tools
Experience with one or more major FPGA families and associated toolchains, including:
Lattice Semiconductor, particularly ECP5, MachXO, CrossLink, or similar devices
AMD/Xilinx FPGA and SoC platforms
Intel/Altera FPGA platforms
Lattice Radiant / Diamond
AMD Vivado
Intel Quartus
Simulation & Verification
QuestaSim / ModelSim
Vivado Simulator
SystemVerilog testbenches
Assertions and automated regression testing
Familiarity with formal verification or UVM is a plus
Interfaces & System Integration
Experience with interfaces such as:
MIPI CSI-2 / D-PHY
LVDS
Camera Link or custom sensor interfaces
HDMI / DisplayPort or digital display interfaces
DDR3 / DDR4 / LPDDR
PCIe
Ethernet
SPI / I2C / UART
High-speed serial interfaces
Software & Automation
Python
Tcl
Git-based development workflows
CI/CD and automated FPGA build/test environments
Familiarity with C/C++ and embedded Linux is beneficial
Preferred Qualifications
Direct experience developing FPGA-based electronics for thermal cameras, infrared imaging systems, EO/IR systems, or advanced imaging products.
Experience integrating cooled or uncooled infrared focal plane arrays.
Experience developing low-SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power) FPGA architectures.
Experience with real-time computer vision and object detection/tracking pipelines.
Experience implementing neural-network inference or AI/ML accelerators on FPGA platforms.
Experience with FPGA SoCs incorporating ARM or RISC-V processors.
Experience developing mission-critical, aerospace, defense, robotics, autonomous, or ruggedized embedded systems.
Experience working with imaging scientists to translate floating-point reference algorithms into production fixed-point hardware.
Strong understanding of video latency and end-to-end imaging-system performance.
Leadership & Soft Skills
Demonstrated ability to independently architect complex FPGA systems and drive them from concept to production.
Strong technical leadership and ability to mentor other engineers.
Excellent analytical and debugging skills across FPGA, board-level hardware, firmware, and system interfaces.
Ability to make sound architecture decisions while balancing performance, schedule, cost, risk, and hardware constraints.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts and architectural tradeoffs.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced development environment with evolving requirements and aggressive schedules.
Strong ownership mentality and a hands-on approach to solving difficult engineering problems.

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