FPGA Verification & Validation Engineer (AU)

Work with cutting edge technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world’s most challenging technical problems in the Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems. Working with high profile customers across militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters in Pyrmont, Sydney. There are approximately 270 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 300 staff by end of 2026. Overseas on the ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Denmark, Germany and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

DroneShield is seeking a highly skilled and motivated FPGA Verification & Validation Engineer with additional DevOps skills to join the FPGA & DSP Engineering team in Sydney, Australia. The position will report to the FPGA Team Lead. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in FPGA design and verification, as well as experience with DevOps practices and tools. This role involves ensuring the quality and reliability of our FPGA designs through rigorous verification and validation processes, as well as streamlining our development operations to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations 

• Develop and execute detailed V&V plans for FPGA designs to ensure compliance with specifications and requirements.
• Implement and maintain automated verification environments using industry-standard tools such as SystemVerilog, UVM, and VHDL.
• Collaborate with design engineers to understand design specifications and develop appropriate test strategies.
• Perform functional, performance, and stress testing on RF based FPGA designs and report findings to the engineering team.
• Troubleshoot and debug FPGA designs to identify and resolve issues.
• Integrate and Maintain continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) pipelines to automate the build, test, and deployment processes.
• Manage version control systems and maintain code repositories to ensure the integrity of codebases.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure as code (IaC) to provision and manage development, testing, and production environments.
• Monitor and optimize the performance of development and testing environments.
• Stay current with the latest verification methodologies, DevOps trends, and industry best practices.
• Document verification processes and results, and maintain comprehensive records for future reference and audits.
• Provide technical support and guidance to junior engineers and team members.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills 

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Minimum of 3 years of experience in FPGA design verification.
• Proficiency with HDL languages such as VHDL, Verilog, and SystemVerilog.
• Proficiency with Python and C/C++.
• Experience with verification methodologies like UVM and OVM.
• Familiarity with FPGA development tools such as Vivado, Quartus etc.
• Knowledge of scripting languages such as Python, Perl, or Tcl.
• Experience with DevOps tools such as Jenkins, Git, Docker and Bazel.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and IaC principles.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Strong communication and teamwork abilities.

Prefered Skills 

• Experience with cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their application to FPGA development and testing. 
• Working understanding of Radio Frequency (RF) concepts. 
• Experience working, V&V and debugging electronics would be nice, but not necessary. 
• Experience with Agile development methodologies. 
• Experience with Bazel or similar build tools is preferred. 

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.