Intermediate FPGA Development Engineer full_time

For those who dream of advancing our space in the Universe and on Earth, we’ll take you there. Serving the world from our Canadian home and our global offices, MDA is an international space mission partner and robotics & space operations, satellite systems and Geointelligence pioneer with a 50-year story of firsts on and above the Earth. 

Today, we’re leading the charge towards viable Moon colonies, enhanced Earth observation, communication in a hyper-connected world, and more. We’re fueled by a pioneering spirit that carries us beyond. And together we enable highly skilled people to continually push boundaries and tackle big challenges requiring solutions that endure and inspire. Are you ready to launch the next stage of your career in the new space economy? We would love to hear from you!

Project Description: 

The Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope (SKA) (https://www.skatelescope.org/) has been dubbed the next great science project after the International Space Station and the Large Hadron Collider, with a price-tag of over 1B Euro. The SKA Project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio interferometric “synthesis” telescope. In a huge leap forward in both engineering and R&D, the SKA will use initially hundreds of receiver dishes, with thousands planned, and hundreds of thousands of dipole antennas connected together by optical fibre fed into massive computing resources. Thanks to its sheer scale, the SKA will tackle transformational science questions, ranging from black holes, galaxy evolution, dark energy, cosmic magnetism, even gravity and life in the Universe itself.

We are looking for an energetic engineer who would participate within the MDA team as a hands-on development team member working and learning the software, firmware/FPGA, and custom HW integration.

Responsibilities:

In this role, you will have the opportunity to establish ownership and demonstrate your abilities, including:

• Work with radio astronomy scientists and system engineers to develop an understanding and ownership of the signal processing algorithms we wish to implement
• Design and implement FPGA based digital designs for the subsystem
• Design and implement software to run on ARM processors embedded in Intel SoC FPGAs.
• Participate with the test data generation team to create test datasets and FPGA digital designs to verify the signal processing chain
• Participate with the integration team to integrate and test the subsystems into each release
• Evaluate the implemented design in terms of timing closure and resource utilization, and scale up the design into full implementation
• Create, review and maintain technical documentation, such as design specifications, user manuals and test reports.

General requirements:

• A university degree in engineering, computer science or other relevant discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• A minimum of 3 years experience working as a FPGA digital systems designer/embedded SW programmer
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability and motivation to learn new things.
• Excellent team player.

Qualifications:

• The following experience is desirable (some combination of):
• Writing VHDL/Verilog
• Digital systems design for System on Chip (SoC) FPGA devices
• Software/FPGA intensive complex systems
• System engineering of digital/computer-based systems
• Working with digital signal processing systems
• The full engineering lifecycle for complex systems
• C/C++ and Python
• MATLAB.
• Software development for embedded processors.
• Intel/Xilinx FPGA development tools.
• Signal processing instrumentation for radio astronomy.
• Agile/SAFe development methodology.
• Software development on custom or specialized hardware.
• Software development for signal processing.

We’re a dream team of purpose-driven, collaborative and passionate people, and we are constantly looking for others to join #TeamMDA to ignite new and innovative approaches to problem-solving that push us forward to improve life on and above Earth. If you’re excited to expand our place in space and driven to inspire the next generation, we’ll take you there. 

We have entered a new era of exploration and development, and MDA welcomes all who yearn to suit up and be part of it. An equal opportunity employer prizing diversity, integrity and collaboration, we are committed to growing MDA’s and Canada’s leadership in this next golden age. 

Comments/Special Considerations: 

Successful candidates must obtain and hold security clearance at the RELIABILITY status level, and pass security assessment for the Controlled Goods Program (CGP). 

MDA provides competitive compensation and benefits packages for its employees at all locations. As a team member of MDA, you and your qualified dependents are eligible to participate in a benefit plan that ensures a comprehensive level of protection through competitive health care including; extended healthcare and flexible drug plans, dental and vision benefits, disability income protection, life insurance, group retirement savings plans; and an employee and family assistance program.

The compensation range for this position is $67,000 – $97,000 annually. The specific compensation offered will be based on the qualifications and experience of the successful candidate.

MDA is an equal opportunity employer prizing diversity and inclusion. We are committed to treating all employees and applicants for employment with respect and dignity. If you require assistance and/or reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please feel free to notify us.