FPGA Engineer — Signal Processing & AI Acceleration

Location: Los Angeles, CA or Louisville, KY

About the work

Design FPGA signal-processing and AI-acceleration components for AstraSense. Help compare microcontroller, FPGA and hybrid architectures using measured numerical accuracy, timing, power and resource use.

What you will do

• Implement real-time FFT, envelope detection, RMS and harmonic-distortion feature extraction in VHDL/Verilog or HLS, with reference models and fixed-point error analysis.
• Prototype hardware acceleration for small neural networks and anomaly models, and evaluate its benefit against simpler CPU or microcontroller baselines.
• Measure latency, power and FPGA resource use on the selected platform to support architecture decisions.
• Connect high-speed ADC data paths and integrate logic with the on-chip processor, memory and software interfaces.
• Own simulation testbenches, timing closure, hardware bring-up and regression tests; investigate discrepancies between simulation and hardware.
• Maintain requirements, design and verification records that can support applicable DO-254 assurance work, without asserting certification or compliance before evidence is established.
• Collaborate with embedded and modeling engineers on data formats, throughput, interface boundaries and failure behavior.

What you bring

• BS/MS in electrical engineering or computer engineering, plus at least three years of FPGA design experience.
• Practical VHDL or Verilog, simulation, testbench development and timing-closure experience.
• Experience implementing fixed-point digital signal processing in hardware.

Useful additional experience

Microchip PolarFire SoC, AMD Kria/Zynq, HLS, AI-acceleration tools, flight hardware or DO-254-oriented engineering work.

First 90 days: scope to agree

Agree a first-90-day objective: one feature-extraction pipeline on selected hardware with a reproducible reference comparison and measured latency, resource use and power. Hardware availability, input rates and numerical acceptance criteria determine the final scope.

About AstraQua

AstraQua is developing a modular autonomy architecture with AQFM as its shared intelligence foundation. Specialized agents contribute perception, reasoning, health and coordination. AstraSense is the health-intelligence agent, with electrified aviation as an initial research application; it connects condition and remaining capability with mission decisions. Our approach to safe AI emphasizes defined operating boundaries, deterministic safety controls, operator authority and behavior designed for verification and validation.