Lead FPGA Engineer
This opportunity sits within a specialist FPGA engineering group supporting latency-sensitive trading systems. The role offers deep involvement across the full FPGA development lifecycle, working closely with software engineers and front-office trading stakeholders to deliver production-grade solutions.
The successful candidate will contribute to the design, build, testing, and deployment of FPGA-based applications used across multiple trading strategies, with scope to take long-term ownership of critical systems.
Key Responsibilities
- Collaborate with software engineers and trading teams to design and deploy FPGA solutions across trading platforms
- Architect and implement FPGA applications end-to-end, including RTL design, synthesis, place & route, and static timing analysis
- Build and maintain shared testing and verification frameworks to ensure system robustness
- Support software integration by developing APIs and optimising hardware–software interfaces
- Identify and propose innovative solutions to hardware, FPGA, and system-level constraints
- Progress toward technical ownership of major FPGA applications or market-specific platforms over time
Required Experience & Skills
- 5–10 years' experience as an FPGA engineer within defence, aerospace, telecoms, or research-driven environments
- Minimum 5 years of hands-on, full-time FPGA development experience using industry-standard tools and workflows
- Strong VHDL development skills, with supporting Python experience
- Comfortable working in Linux-based development environments
- Strong engineering discipline with a focus on clean design and maintainable code
- Proven experience working in collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams
- Deep expertise in at least one of the following: networking, computer architecture, or verification
- Working-level proficiency in C/C++
- Strong interest in financial markets and electronic trading systems
Contact Ciara Clarke at Harrington Starr for a confidential discussion on this role.