Senior VHDL FPGA Engineer in Basildon

Your Impact

At Leonardo, we are excited to be recruiting for a skilled FPGA Engineer to work within a multi-disciplinary team for our Precision Guidance area. In this broad FPGA firmware engineering role, you will work across a range of projects throughout various stages of the product lifecycle from initial concept development through to early life production. You will work with some of the latest high‑speed FPGAs and System‑on‑Chips (SoCs) to help shape our future products. The role shall be based in Basildon with a primary focus on the design and development of embedded VHDL firmware for complex airborne electro‑optics subsystems. You will be part of the Leonardo Sensors product development group within the Integrated Sensing & Protection line of business, interacting with partner organisations, sub‑contractors and potential customers.

What you will do:

• Firmware requirements capture and management.
• FPGA design and analysis.
• Production of documentation for other engineers and evidence for design reviews.
• Development of FPGA test and FPGA integration plans.
• Perform system integration work with PCB designers and embedded software engineers.
• Support all firmware designs through the company firmware process – training will be given.
• Modification of existing firmware designs and test benches.

What we are looking for:

• Experience using FPGA technologies especially from either Xilinx, Microsemi (Actel) or Lattice and their tools.
• Advanced verification techniques using either VHDL or System Verilog / UVM.
• Specifying complex timing and area constraints for efficient FPGA place and route.
• Ability to analyse system‑level requirements and derive detailed Firmware requirements.
• A methodical approach to the full firmware design lifecycle, working to a structured firmware process such as RTCA DO‑254 or similar.
• Experience of working on safety related firmware to IEC 61508 would be advantageous.
• Debugging firmware designs and supporting verification and integration at hardware and system level alongside Software and Hardware Engineers.
• Making technical decisions and mitigating technical risk for Firmware design activities.
• Ability to communicate effectively across different disciplines both verbally and in written form.
• Familiarity with Siemens EDA FPGA development tools including HDL Designer and ModelSim / Questa is an advantage.

It would be nice if you had:

• Awareness of Safety, Security and other legislative constraints.
• Engineering experience with electro‑optic systems – e.g. cameras, thermal imagers and/or image processing systems/algorithms.
• Experience of mentoring more junior members of the team.

Security Clearance

This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, which could include meeting the eligibility requirements for the Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV).

Benefits and Working Conditions:

• Flexible working with hybrid options.
• Company funded benefits: private healthcare, dental schemes, workplace ISA, Go Green Car Scheme, technology and lifestyle options (£500 annual allowance).
• Holidays: 25 days plus bank holidays; option to buy/sell leave and accrue up to 12 additional flexi leave days per year.
• Pension scheme: up to 15% employer contribution.
• Wellbeing programmes (Employee Assistance Programme, free mental health support, financial wellbeing support).

Primary Location: GB - Basildon

Contract Type: Employee-Permanent