FPGA Engineer

Be part of an exciting, well-funded startup changing the world of retail and beyond. RADAR's mission is to revolutionize customer experience in retail through precise identification of inventory in the stores and distribution centers, completely transforming the in-store experience for employees and customers alike. RADAR's proprietary hardware and software platform combines RFID, Computer Vision and AI to provide hyper-precise, real-time location of every product and person in physical stores. This unprecedented capability enables some of the world's top retailers to automate in-store inventory management, analytics, and checkout...and this is just the beginning of what we hope to accomplish together.

RADAR is searching for a high energy individual who enjoys working in a small business environment in the high-tech industry. This position is to develop new feature enhancements in an existing FPGA design, such as implementing new PHY layer algorithms or integrating with a new RF hardware architecture. You will contribute to architecture decisions on the partitioning of processing across different layers of the overall system and contribute to planning future generations of the product. This role requires collaboration with team members of other engineering disciplines in all phases of the engineering process including analysis, design, implementation and test. An ideal candidate will have previous experience or an academic background in wireless communication systems, networking, computer architecture, and hardware devices.

Responsibilities:

• Write RTL code for signal processing blocks according to system engineer specifications.
• Read board schematics and write RTL code for interfacing with devices such as ADCs and DACs.
• Create testbenches for test vector matching and interface validation.
• Simulate and debug designs with ModelSim.
• Develop timing constraints for high speed interfaces and achieve timing closure in Vivado.
• Document software interfaces (register maps and message formats).
• Perform hands-on testing of FPGA designs in the lab, working alongside software and hardware engineers.

In your first 30 days, you will:

• Learn how to build and simulate the FPGA design.
• Learn the basics of the RFID PHY and MAC layers.

In your first 60 days, you will:

• Implement a new feature enhancement in the FPGA.
• Simulate and verify the changes with test vectors.
• Integrate the changes with the software team.
• Work with the system test team to validate the changes in the lab.

In your first 90 days, you will:

• Develop testbench and regression tests for the RF control sub-system.
• Identify architecture improvements in the RF control sub-system.
• Prototype new RF interfaces.

Required:

• You have an Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering or other relevant fields.
• You have 5+ years of experience in FPGA design and verification.
• You have experience in VHDL and/or Verilog.
• You have experience with AMD SoC and FPGA products (Zynq family preferred).
• You have experience with Vivado and ModelSim.
• You have experience designing interfaces between hardware and software.
• You have experience interfacing with RF transceivers.
• You have an understanding of signal processing (wireless systems preferred).
• You are familiar with bus interfaces such as SPI.
• You have strong verbal and written communication skills.
• You are self-directed and can complete tasks independently with minimal supervision.

Preferred:

• You have experience with FPGA multi-gigabit transceiver interfaces.
• You have experience designing and debugging digital boards.
• You have experience with lab equipment such as spectrum analyzers, signal generators, and oscilloscopes.
• You have an understanding of MAC layer networking.
• You have experience with Python scripting.

Research has shown that women & underrepresented minorities are more likely to read lists of requirements and consider themselves unqualified if they don't meet every single one. This list represents what we're ideally looking for, but everyone has unique strengths & weaknesses, and we hire for strength & potential, not lack of weakness.

Technology like what we're building doesn't happen on its own. It is the result of a collaborative environment and the hard work of passionate, dedicated individuals working intelligently towards a common goal. We are looking for exceptional people to join our growing team and have a positive impact on our culture, technology, and product from day one. We deeply value humility, curiosity, and a positive attitude and you should as well. You should also believe that mutual respect is the foundation of any healthy and productive relationship. You should be unafraid to ask questions or challenge responses no matter how simple or complex. Most importantly, you should value honest and direct communication as you recognize that this is the best way for any individual or team to continuously learn and grow. Accomplishing our collective goals will be fun but it will also be hard; you should be in pursuit of an ongoing and rewarding challenge!

We're passionate about the technology we've created and what we're building, but we know that changing any industry and creating a successful company will take balance, maturity, and a sustained effort. We've combined retail industry expertise, amazing engineers with experience shipping real-world hardware and software solutions, and a team of brilliant minds who are not afraid to focus on solving "impossible" problems. But this passion doesn't mean we live unbalanced lives. We have families and passions outside of work, and we know that the best work comes from sharp, rested people. We respect each other and each of our contributions, and we believe that the best solutions will come from a diversity of ideas and perspectives.

Finally, we build our products with deep empathy for the people who will use them every day. Their input and insights are our clearest guide to building what they need; we respect our partners and clients, and listen closely to their feedback.