Staff Electrical Engineer - FPGA

VoltForce is working with an early-stage materials-inspection company on the search for a Staff Electrical Engineer. Our client helps manufacturers make better, safer, and more reliable micro- and nano-scale materials, the building blocks of critical sectors like energy storage, semiconductors, aerospace, and power systems. The company's platform scans materials without damaging them, pairing a novel sensing approach with physics-informed machine learning to capture real-time signals that conventional methods cannot access. This provides manufacturers rare visibility into material behavior during production, turning hidden data into actionable intelligence to reduce variability and increase yield and performance.

About the Role

Our client is looking for a Staff Electrical Engineer to lead the architecture, design, implementation, and validation of high-performance programmable logic, embedded processing, and FPGA-based digital signal processing systems that power the company's next-generation metrology platform. This is a hands-on, high-impact role for someone who enjoys working close to the technology, solving hard problems quickly, and helping shape products in an early-stage startup environment. You will work closely with a small, highly capable team to turn advanced sensing, digital signal processing, and control concepts into robust, field-ready systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, implementation, and validation of FPGA, MPSoC, and FPGA-based digital signal processing systems for the company's metrology platform
• Develop designs from concept through architecture definition, RTL development, modeling, simulation, verification, testbench development, bench testing, and system bring-up
• Build and maintain robust simulation and verification environments to validate functionality, timing, performance, and reliability at both block and system levels
• Design and implement FPGA-based digital signal processing pipelines for real-time sensing and metrology applications, including FIR filters, synchronization pipelines, control loops, and low-latency data paths
• Implement, evaluate, and refine signal-processing and control algorithms such as PID, ADPLL, filtering, and signal-conditioning methods for high-performance measurement systems
• Use MATLAB and Python for algorithm development, modeling, data analysis, system validation, and signal and electrical data characterization
• Perform large-scale data analysis to evaluate signal quality, characterize system behavior, and guide design tradeoffs and performance optimization
• Collaborate closely with hardware, electrical, software, algorithm, and systems engineers to support end-to-end FPGA, MPSoC, firmware, and hardware integration
• Read and interpret schematics to understand board-level architecture, interfaces, signal paths, power domains, and subsystem dependencies
• Bring up new boards in the lab, troubleshoot issues independently, and debug hardware and firmware interactions using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, signal generators, power supplies, and related lab equipment
• Help translate frontier R&D concepts into scalable, reliable, and manufacturable digital systems

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with 5+ years of relevant industry experience
• Strong experience with end-to-end FPGA and MPSoC design, including architecture, RTL development, simulation, synthesis, timing closure, verification, and board bring-up
• Advanced experience with FPGA-based digital signal processing for real-time systems, including FIR filters, synchronization methods, streaming pipelines, and control-oriented digital design
• Strong experience with algorithm modeling and analysis using MATLAB and Python
• Experience implementing and validating signal-processing and control techniques such as PID, ADPLL, filtering, and signal characterization workflows
• Strong command of HDL/RTL implementation for digital signal processing, control, and high-performance data-path design
• Hands-on experience developing testbenches, verification environments, and bench-level validation workflows
• Strong understanding of firmware and hardware integration and system-level debugging in tightly coupled digital platforms
• Ability to read and understand electrical schematics and work effectively at the board and subsystem level
• Proven experience troubleshooting and bringing up hardware in the lab using standard electrical test equipment
• Experience working in a fast-moving, multidisciplinary environment with a high degree of ownership and technical independence
• Strong communication skills and a practical, problem-solving mindset

Nice to Have

• Experience providing technical leadership for hardware and firmware engineering teams in complex product development environments
• Experience with image processing or vision-related algorithm pipelines
• PCB design experience, including familiarity with board-level layout considerations and signal integrity tradeoffs
• Experience with high-speed interfaces, instrumentation systems, or real-time sensing platforms
• Familiarity with mixed-signal systems and integration with ADCs, DACs, sensors, and embedded processors
• Exposure to metrology systems, scientific instrumentation, or advanced materials applications

Why This Role

• Help define a new category in advanced materials metrology
• Work on genuinely novel deep-tech hardware with real scientific and industrial impact
• Join an early-stage team where your decisions directly shape the product, technology, and company
• Build systems at the intersection of advanced sensing, electronics, AI-driven analytics, programmable logic, and digital signal processing
• Contribute to technology that expands what researchers and industry teams are able to see, measure, and optimize

Location: San Leandro, CA (on-site) | Job Type: Full-time