FPGA Emulation Engineer

Overview

This role offers the opportunity to sit right at the front of semiconductor development, where ideas are explored and tested in hardware before they ever become silicon. A global mixed-signal semiconductor company is looking to add an FPGA Prototyping Engineer to its system evaluation and emulation team.

Rather than working on production RTL, this position focuses on early-stage investigation, proof-of-concept development, and architectural evaluation. You’ll take emerging ideas and ASIC RTL concepts and map them onto FPGA platforms, allowing new approaches to be tested, challenged, and refined long before silicon implementation begins.

Responsibilities

In this role, you’ll prototype future architectures on FPGA, develop system-level test environments, and carry out hands-on evaluation of mixed-signal devices. You’ll work closely with architects, ASIC designers, and validation teams to uncover issues early, influence design direction, and provide evidence-based feedback that shapes final chip specifications. Over time, you’ll also help build repeatable test and regression frameworks to support ongoing exploration and evaluation.

Qualifications

• Degree-level education in Electronics or a related discipline
• Experience working with FPGA platforms and associated tool flows
• RTL coding experience in VHDL, Verilog, or SystemVerilog
• Strong hands-on capability in hardware bring-up, testing, and debug
• Ability to turn loosely defined concepts into practical prototypes and test plans
• Comfortable working at system level across hardware, firmware, and software
• Experience with PCB schematic review, in-circuit emulation, bus analysers, Python scripting, or mixed-signal components (ADCs, DACs, DSPs) would be advantageous
• Prior exposure to semiconductor development environments

This is an on-site role based in Edinburgh, offering a rare opportunity to influence future silicon by proving ideas in hardware before they ever reach the chip design stage.