{"id":2106484,"url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware","title":"Senior Electrical Engineer - FPGA Firmware","company":{"id":1906176,"name":"Star Catcher","domain":"star-catcher.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/star-catcher","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Jacksonville, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":101000,"max_usd":186000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1517},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Verilog","optional":false},{"name":"VHDL","optional":false},{"name":"CCSDS","optional":true},{"name":"Formal Verification","optional":true},{"name":"OpenVPX","optional":true},{"name":"SpaceWire","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-08T18:18:10Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-14","last_verified_at":"2026-11-06T00:15:42Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":28,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":28},"description":"Power the future of Space at Star Catcher\nStar Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy.\nToday’s spacecraft must generate all of their own power, which caps what they can do and how long they can operate. But what if they could “plug” into a grid, the way buildings do on Earth? Instead of cables and outlets, Star Catcher is building the technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft’s existing solar panels when and where they need it.\nBe an early member of a team building an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale to power the next frontier.\nStar Catcher Industries, Inc., located in Jacksonville, Florida, has an opportunity for a Senior Electrical Engineer - FPGA Firmware to support the development of space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network, its orbital power grid. \nKey Responsibilities\nLead FPGA gateware architecture for real-time control loops, including beam-control servo logic for Pointing, Acquisition & Tracking (PAT), and co-own interfaces with digital hardware, embedded software, and systems leads.\nDecompose and allocate system and board-level requirements to FPGA specifications, and architect solutions targeting FPGA/SoC platforms against those requirements.\nReview product specifications and generate module-level block diagrams, flow diagrams, and design concepts for FPGA subsystems.\nDrive timing closure, pipelining, and clock-domain crossing strategy for mission-critical designs.\nSet partitioning strategy between hard processor subsystems and reconfigurable fabric on SoC platforms.\nLead full lifecycle development of VHDL or Verilog gateware, from architecture through simulation, integration, and test on the circuit card assembly.\nMap FPGA simulation work products to system-level requirements and capabilities, using complex block- and top-level simulations to verify performance ahead of hardware integration.\nLead bench-level system integration of FPGA designs with hardware, firmware, and software.\nRefine and enforce consistent firmware development processes and version control practices across FPGA designs.\nMentor firmware engineers and establish FPGA design/verification standards.\nSelect and qualify FPGA/SoC platforms and associated toolchains for high-reliability, space-flight applications.\nSupport qualification and production test efforts, including troubleshooting in the event of test failures.\nBasic Qualifications\nEducation: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.\nExperience: 10+ years of professional experience designing and verifying FPGA gateware in VHDL or Verilog.\nExperience with FPGA/SoC design toolchains, including synthesis, place-and-route, and timing closure.\nDemonstrated experience implementing real-time control loops in reconfigurable logic.\nThorough understanding of version control best practices and tools for tracking changes to an FPGA baseline.\nDesired Skills\nExperience evaluating radiation-tolerant FPGA/SoC platforms, including Microchip RTG4/RT PolarFire nonvolatile configuration and AMD XQR Kintex UltraScale/XQR Versal SRAM-based configuration. Understand configuration-upset mitigation and scrubbing where applicable, plus separate risks in user memory, logic, processors, and transceivers.\nExperience implementing DSP or signal-processing in FPGA fabric.\nFamiliarity with spacecraft communications protocols (CCSDS) such as AOS, EPP, TM/TC, SPP.\nExperience with formal verification or advanced simulation methodologies, including transaction-based models for block- and top-level FPGA simulation.\nExperience with high-speed serial interfaces (e.g., PCIe, SpaceWire, Ethernet), control interfaces (e.g., I2C, SPI, RS-232/422), and memory interfaces (e.g., DDR3/DDR4).\nExperience with FPGA devices (e.g., AMD Kintex/Virtex UltraScale+, Microchip RTG4 or RT PolarFire) and processor-integrated SoCs (e.g., AMD Zynq UltraScale+ or XQR Versal), or equivalent platforms.\nFamiliarity with backplane-based architecture (e.g., SpaceVPX, VPX) and board-to-FPGA interface constraints.\nExperience with NASA/DoD life cycle and technical reviews (e.g., SRR, PDR, CDR).\nExperience mentoring engineers or establishing team-wide design standards.\nAbility to prioritize assignments and complete design/project goals with minimal oversight in a fast-paced environment.\nHelp us deploy and scale space infrastructure that will drive our utilization of space forward! We offer a highly competitive benefits package including access to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k) retirement plan, life insurance, and paid parental leave, in addition to other benefits.\nStar Catcher is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Star Catcher is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.\nAll offers of employment at Star Catcher are contingent upon results of a thorough background check and your ability to provide proof of eligibility to work in the US.\nTo conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5598,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Life insurance","Parental leave","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Space Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-08T20:33:36Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":62,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.829,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":27,"expected_fill_days":36,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:late"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-06T00:49:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1417,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-07T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1906176},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1906176"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/star-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-senior-electrical-engineer-fpga-firmware"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":2106484}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"star-catcher.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":2106484},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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