FPGA and DSP Team Lead

About the role

DroneShield is seeking an experienced FPGA & DSP Team Lead to lead the FPGA & DSP Engineering team in Sydney, Australia. Reporting to the Hardware Manager, Embedded Systems, this role combines technical leadership with hands‑on engineering responsibilities. The focus is the development and advancement of RF Detection and Defeat products using Software‑Defined Radios, FPGAs and advanced signal‑processing technologies.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and support a team of FPGA and DSP engineers developing electronic‑warfare products using Agile development methodologies.
• Assign and prioritize work, maintain project plans, resource forecasts and workforce planning activities.
• Provide regular updates to management on team progress, risks, dependencies and project status.
• Collaborate with other engineering leaders to establish consistent processes, tools and ways of working aligned with industry best practice.
• Conduct regular one‑on‑one meetings, performance discussions and support professional growth through training opportunities.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical leadership within engineering teams.
• Strong experience developing, debugging and verifying FPGA designs using Verilog, VHDL or SystemVerilog.
• Experience with FPGA development environments such as Vivado, Quartus or Vitis.
• Experience designing high‑throughput, low‑latency, fully pipelined FPGA architectures.
• Experience writing C/C++ firmware for FPGA‑based systems and proficiency in Python.
• Experience working in Linux‑based development environments.
• Understanding of RF systems, transmission protocols and digital signal‑processing concepts.

Required skills

• FPGA design (Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog)
• Vivado, Quartus, Vitis toolchains
• C/C++ firmware development
• Python scripting
• Linux development environment
• PCB schematic interpretation and board bring‑up
• RF systems knowledge
• Digital signal processing implementation
• Machine‑learning concepts on FPGA
• ARM‑based embedded systems
• MPSoC platform development
• Automated verification and validation frameworks
• CI/CD pipeline integration