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FPGA Engineer, Safety-Critical Embedded Systems (Nuclear Microreactors)

Industry: Advanced Energy, Nuclear Systems, Factory-Built Microreactors

Work Location: Onsite, El Segundo, California

Employment Type: Full-time, exempt salaried

About The Opportunity

A fast-moving energy startup is building next-generation, portable nuclear microreactors designed for real-world deployment. The mission is straightforward and ambitious: deliver reliable, high-density power in places where diesel generators are the default and where energy resilience is non-negotiable.

The first product is a transportable microreactor in the 1 MW class, engineered to operate for years without refueling. These systems are intended for high-importance environments such as hospitals, data centers, remote industrial sites, and defense applications.

This is not theoretical work. The team is actively preparing for first-of-a-kind testing at a major U.S. national laboratory, with a roadmap toward commercial delivery. If you want to help build one of the first new commercial reactor designs in decades, this role is a front-row seat.

The Role

As an FPGA Engineer on the Embedded Systems team, you will design and deliver FPGA logic that lives inside the reactor’s instrumentation and control stack. Your work will directly support safety-critical monitoring, sensor and actuator processing, and robust communication pathways.

You will collaborate daily with hardware, embedded software, controls, and test engineers to produce cohesive, verifiable designs that meet the realities of operating and supervising a fission system. This is a hands-on engineering role where you will own meaningful architecture, write production-grade RTL, and validate it end to end.

What You Will Build

• FPGA-based sensor acquisition and processing pipelines that translate real-world signals into deterministic, safety-grade data.
• Logic for actuator interfacing and timing-sensitive control signals, built for reliability and traceability.
• Communication and data-handling logic that integrates cleanly with embedded software and system-level controls.
• Verification infrastructure and automated tests to ensure correctness across edge cases and failure scenarios.
  
  

Key Responsibilities

• Own FPGA and sensor-processing designs from early concept through integration and system validation.
• Develop and maintain RTL in VHDL for production safety-critical applications.
• Bring designs onto FPGA and FPGA/SoC targets, including integration with firmware and board-level hardware.
• Drive timing closure across multi-clock domains and complex interfaces.
• Create automated verification tests and contribute to robust verification strategy.
• Partner closely with embedded software engineers to deliver complete, testable features.
• Collaborate across hardware, controls, mechanical, and test teams to ensure the system works as a whole.
• Document designs clearly so they are maintainable, auditable, and scalable as the platform evolves.
  
  

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years of professional FPGA development experience in a real-world product environment.
• Strong proficiency in VHDL and experience building synthesizable, production RTL.
• Demonstrated experience resolving timing closure issues and optimizing performance.
• Comfort working with multi-clock systems, clock-domain crossing concerns, and deterministic design requirements.
• Working knowledge of verification methodologies and an engineering mindset that prioritizes testability.
• Ability to work effectively in a cross-functional environment with multiple engineering disciplines.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with embedded C and C++ in systems that interface with FPGA logic.
• Familiarity with Microchip PolarFire SoC or similar FPGA/SoC platforms.
• Comfort working in Linux development environments, including bash scripting.
• Experience using Docker to standardize builds, tooling, or CI workflows.
• Strong documentation habits, including design notes, interface specs, and verification plans.
• Prior exposure to safety-critical, regulated, or high-assurance engineering environments.
  
  

What Makes This Role Different

• You are building for the real world. This is hardware that will be tested, validated, and deployed, not a prototype that lives on a lab bench.
• The engineering bar is high. Safety-critical instrumentation and control work demands rigor, clarity, and discipline.
• You will have true ownership. You will take designs from idea to integrated system, and you will see them through validation.
• The team is deeply cross-functional. FPGA, embedded software, and hardware engineers sit together and build as one unit.
• The mission matters. Reliable, deployable power can protect critical infrastructure and save lives in high-need environments.
  
  

Compensation And Benefits

This company pays for impact and invests heavily in people who raise the technical standard. Offers include a competitive base salary, meaningful equity, and a comprehensive benefits package. Compensation is determined by scope, experience, and demonstrated capability through the interview process.

Benefits and Perks (Eligible Employees)

• Equity: Significant stock option grants for full-time employees.
• Medical: Employer-covered health plans, with multiple tiers available. Dependent coverage offered.
• Dental and Vision: Premium plan options with strong employer contribution.
• Additional Coverage: Voluntary life, accident, hospital, and critical illness plans available.
• Commuter and Health Accounts: FSA and HSA options offered where eligible.
• Parental Leave: Paid leave for all parents, with additional support for pregnancy leave for California employees.
• Food and Office Perks: Daily catered lunch, plus snacks and drinks.
• Time Off: Flexible PTO policy and designated remote workday allocation.
• Team Culture: Regular company events, team bonding, and an in-person engineering environment.
• Workspace: Modern headquarters near the Pacific Ocean in El Segundo, California.
  
  

How to Know If This Is You

You enjoy designing digital systems that must work every time, under real constraints, in environments where failure is not an option. You like being close to the hardware, collaborating with embedded and test teams, and owning the full arc from RTL through integration and validation.

If you want to apply your FPGA expertise to one of the most technically meaningful energy projects underway today, this is the role.

About Andiamo

Talent Partners for the AI Revolution. As a globally recognized staffing and consulting firm, we specialize in placing the top 2% of technology and go-to-market professionals with the world’s largest and most well-known companies.

For over 20 years, we've maintained the status of tier-one vendor for firms such as Palantir, Amazon, Fluidstack, Bloomberg, Relativity Space, Firefly, MasterCard, Visa, Two Sigma, Citadel, as well as other major financial services firms, elite hedge funds, Google-backed tech start-ups, and major software firms.

Our talent solutions include Permanent Placement, Contract Staffing, Executive Search, and Dedicated Recruiting Services (RPO). Find out more at www.andiamogo.com