Embedded Design Engineer - FPGA Academy

Salary: Engineer: £37,400 to £53,550 / Senior: £45, 200 to £61,950 / Principal: £53,300 to £71,400

Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.

Are you looking for a change of role and are wondering if a move into FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) design might be for you? Leonardo provides a route to develop your existing skills in our on-site FPGA Academy, to allow you to become a full-time Senior FPGA / Firmware Engineer. You’ll then apply your talents to a range of cutting edge designs in our world class Radar and Advanced Targeting Systems (RATS) team.

The FPGA Academy is a 16‑week structured training and development programme designed for engineers with transferable technical skill sets (such as electronic engineering, embedded software, or systems engineering) who wish to transition into FPGA / Firmware Engineering.

The Academy provides focused technical training, mentored practical exercises, and hands‑on project work. On successful completion, engineers are deployed across a range of complex design projects, contributing to real systems alongside experienced FPGA and Electronics engineers.

This programme is not intended for absolute beginners; it is aimed at capable engineers with strong fundamentals and proven problem‑solving ability who can quickly adapt and progress.

As an FPGA Academy Engineer, you will re-skill into a FPGA / Firmware engineering role and apply your existing engineering and coding experience to the design, implementation, and verification of complex electronic systems. You will learn how to translate requirements into robust FPGA-based solutions and work within established engineering processes suitable for high‑reliability and mission‑critical applications.

During the Academy, and following deployment, you will:

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  Undertake a structured 16‑week FPGA training programme combining:

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  Practical labs

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  Mentored design exercises

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  Online training material and self-led research

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  Apply systems thinking to hardware design challenges

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  Post training deployment into established engineering teams

• Hardware requirements, capture and management

• Concept development for complex functions and systems

• FPGA design, implementation, and analysis

• Applying verification techniques using VHDL or SystemVerilog, with exposure to UVM where applicable

• Production of material for design reviews

• Development of test planning, integration, and design verification activities

• Ensuring all firmware designs comply with the company firmware development process

• Working with FPGA technologies and tools from AMD, Altera, or Microchip

• A degree (BSc, BEng, MEng, MSc, PhD, EngD) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (preferred) or a related science (e.g. Physics)

• Coding experience, such as: Embedded C / C++, Python / scripting languages, Low‑level or real‑time software, algorithmic or systems‑level programming

• Proven engineering problem‑solving experience, demonstrated through academic projects, industrial experience or personal / independent engineering work

• Strong digital engineering fundamentals and the ability to learn quickly

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting