Senior FPGA Prototyping Engineer - Hardware

Are you passionate about FPGA prototyping? Are you interested in pushing the boundaries of innovation to make FPGA prototypes faster and more efficient? Can you work in a fast-paced environment that requires coordination between many teams across geographies and resolving sophisticated problems daily? If so, we are looking for hardworking engineers who will craft FPGA prototypes of our next generation GPUs and SOCs on standard FPGA prototyping platforms.

We are now looking for a Senior FPGA Prototyping Engineer to join our Emulation team onsite in Santa Clara, CA.

What you'll be doing:

• Build FPGA prototypes by making RTL FPGA-friendly, partitioning the design and taking it through synthesis and place and route.
• Improve performance of the prototype, analyze timing and generate bit streams.
• Bring up the design on FPGA prototyping platforms and indulge in problem solving.
• Release the prototype to the customers and support them when they face problems.
• You are expected to understand the design and implementation, define the configurations, develop/modify the bringup and testing infrastructure and verify the correctness of the design.
• Good coordination with architects, designers, verification engineers, and SW teams will be needed to accomplish your tasks.

What we need to see:

• BS (or equivalent experience) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields with 12+ years of experience, or MS with 10+ years of proven experience in FPGA prototyping.
• Good understanding of FPGA prototyping architecture, devices, flows and tools.
• Experience in backend flows of FPGA Prototyping - Synthesis, P&R and Timing closure, with emphasis on Synopsys Protocompiler or Siemens VPS and Xilinx Vivado
• Exposure to ASIC design and verification tools (VCS or equivalent, Verdi, GDB).
• Knowledge of Verilog, System Verilog and digital design concepts.
• Good debugging and problem solving skills.
• Hands on experience with lab FPGA debug methodologies, tools (Identify or ChipScope), and lab debug equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers).

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

• Scripting knowledge (Perl/shell/Tcl) is desired.
• Good documentation, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Experience with memory bring up of Memory (LPDDR5/6, DDR5/6), CXL/PCIE and/or high speed I/F such as USB4/3 is desirable
• Prior experience with hardware emulation or prototyping (Synopsys HAPS or Siemens ProFPGA) of a high-performance processor or SOC is a plus.

NVIDIA has continuously reinvented itself over two decades. Our invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics, and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI — the next era of computing. NVIDIA is a “learning machine” that constantly evolves by adapting to new opportunities that are hard to solve, that only we can tackle, and that matter to the world. This is our life’s work, to amplify human imagination and intelligence. Make the choice to join us today!

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 196,000 USD - 310,500 USD for Level 5, and 232,000 USD - 368,000 USD for Level 6.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits ↗ (external site).

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until October 24, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.