FPGA Engineer - Electronic Warfare

About Us

Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.

Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.

About the Role

As an FPGA Engineer within our Electronic Warfare team, you will design and implement the real-time digital signal processing that turns raw RF into actionable effect — from receiver channelization and threat detection through to jamming waveform generation. You will own the RTL at the heart of our EW and SIGINT systems, working hand-in-hand with the RF hardware, embedded software and algorithm teams to take a signal chain from concept and simulation to silicon, to the lab, and into the field.

Responsibilities

• RTL Design & Implementation: Design and implement signal-processing datapaths in VHDL or SystemVerilog — digital down-conversion, channelizers, filtering, FFT and detection chains — from specification through to validation.

• Real-Time DSP in Fabric: Implement detection, direction-finding, classification and waveform generation under hard latency and throughput budgets, translating algorithm intent into fixed-point hardware.

• RF & Data Converter Interfacing: Own the digital interface to the RF front-end — high-speed converters (JESD204B/C), multi-channel clocking, synchronization and calibration paths.

• Hardware/Software Partitioning: Define the split between programmable logic and on-chip processors, and the register and streaming interfaces the embedded software team builds against.

• Timing Closure & Resource Budgets: Drive constraints, timing closure, and resource, power and thermal budgets on production hardware.

• Bring-up, Integration & Validation: Lead FPGA bring-up on new boards, bench validation against performance targets with RF instrumentation, and over-the-air testing alongside the systems team.

• Technical Coordination: Collaborate across RF hardware, embedded, GNC and ML teams on system integration and technical interfaces.

• System Reviews & Documentation: Contribute to design and architecture reviews, maintaining consistency between requirements, design and testing.

Candidate Requirements

• Strong RTL design background in VHDL or SystemVerilog for signal-processing datapaths is mandatory.

• Solid digital signal processing fundamentals: sampling, mixing, decimation, filter design, FFT, and fixed-point arithmetic and quantization trade-offs.

• Hands-on experience with SoC FPGAs and their toolchains..

• No prior Electronic Warfare experience required.

• Experience with high-speed data converter interfaces (JESD204B/C) and multi-channel synchronization is a definite plus.

• Experience with algorithm-to-RTL workflows (MATLAB/Simulink, Python modelling, or HLS) is a plus.

• Lab experience with RF instrumentation — spectrum analyzer, vector signal generator, oscilloscope — is a plus.

• MSc in Electrical / Electronics Engineering, Signal Processing or a related field;

• Broad engineering culture with understanding of RF hardware, embedded software and system-level trade-offs.

• Rigorous, structured and mission-driven mindset with strong analytical skills.

• Excellent communication and documentation abilities.

We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.