Rate: up to 85 ph, Umbrella, inside IR35

Duration: Initial 6 Month Contract

Clearance Required: SC

Sector: Defence

Location: Basildon, full time on site.

The Opportunity

Do you want to collaborate in delivering equipment to protect the UK Armed Forces from IEDs?

Due to the continued growth of the business area, we are looking for a Principal Firmware Engineer to join our Mission Systems team.

This role presents an excellent opportunity for an ambitious individual to develop and grow their skills and knowledge within a thriving organisation.

This is an exciting opportunity to develop state of the art solutions for Electronic Counter Measure (ECM) programmes - providing systems that improve the safety of personnel against threats such as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) or similar in Civilian or Military environments. These systems are utilised on a variety of target platforms with the opportunity to work closely with both partners and end users.

What you will do

Key Responsibility Areas

• 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

Desirable Skills, Qualifications & Knowledge

• 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.
• De-bugging 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.
• Engineering experience with radio systems and software defined radio or signal processing an advantage
• Experience of mentoring more junior members of the team

It would be nice if you had:

• Awareness of Safety, Security and other legislative constraints
• Domain experience in Electronics Warfare and Electronics Countermeasures

You must be capable of achieving full SC security clearance and will require access to caveated information such as UK eyes only.