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Hire FPGA Engineers Who Can Actually Close Timing
The resume said timing closure. Three months in, the 500 MHz path still won't meet, and the contract is already signed. On ShawSilicon you read the score before you read the resume: every FPGA engineer in the pool has passed a structured 10-question technical interview in their specialization, scored category by category — conceptual depth, design, debugging, diagrams, adversarial debug — against a fixed pass floor, and stays invisible to you until they clear it. You see the breakdown, then you decide.
Charter clients at locked pricing
Verified shortlist in 72 hours for an eligible role, or no charge
Scored by category vs a fixed pass floor
Engineers keep 100% — zero commission
Send one eligible role brief and get a verified shortlist within 72 hours, or a straight answer that the verified depth is not there yet. Either way, no charge for that shortlist. Eligible = a role in one of the nine specializations with a clear brief (stack, level, must-haves).
Scored
SHORTLIST BY CATEGORY
Why FPGA Hiring Is Broken
FPGA design engineers are among the most specialized and sought-after hardware professionals in the semiconductor industry. Companies building AI accelerators, defense systems, networking equipment, and high-frequency trading platforms depend on FPGA engineers who can design, simulate, and validate complex digital systems on FPGAs from Intel (Altera), AMD (Xilinx), and Lattice.
Traditional recruiting fails for FPGA roles because most recruiters cannot distinguish between an engineer who has closed timing on a 500MHz Agilex 7 design and one who completed a university lab in Vivado. ShawSilicon's structured technical interview tests real skills: CDC FIFO implementation, timing constraint definition, AXI protocol debugging, and multi-clock domain architecture. Engineers are verified through a structured technical interview in their specialization.
Key Skills & Tools
Core Skills
VerilogSystemVerilogVHDLRTL DesignTiming ClosureCDC AnalysisAXI/AXI-StreamDDR4/LPDDR5HBMCXLPCIeHLSDSPBRAM/URAMFloorplanning
EDA Tools & Platforms
Xilinx VivadoIntel Quartus PrimeLattice DiamondSynplify ProModelSimVerilator
Roles We Fill
- Senior FPGA Design Engineer
- RTL Designer
- FPGA Verification Engineer
- HLS Developer
- FPGA System Architect
Who Sets the Bar
The engineer who designs the interview is the engineer who ships the RTL it tests for. ShawSilicon is built by John Bagshaw, a Senior FPGA Design Engineer with 8+ years designing for AMD, Intel, and Xilinx platforms — Zynq UltraScale+ and Agilex 7. The benchmarks behind the bar are public and timing-closed: cxl-kv-forge-qos at 400 MHz (WNS +0.413 ns, WHS +0.017 ns), a GNSS spoof/jam detector at 488.76 MHz, and flashattn-softmax and kvcache-compress both closed at 400 MHz. The fixed pass floor every engineer clears is the bar he holds himself to.
How ShawSilicon Works
Step 1: Post your FPGA role with required skills, rate range, and timeline.
Step 2: ShawSilicon matches you with verified engineers who have passed the structured technical interview in FPGA / RTL Design. You see the category-by-category score, not just a resume.
Step 3: You interview the shortlist and start the engagement.
Frequently Asked Questions
How quickly can I hire an FPGA engineer through ShawSilicon?
Send one eligible role brief and get a verified shortlist within 72 hours, or a straight answer that the verified depth is not there yet — either way, no charge for that shortlist. Eligible = a role in one of the nine specializations with a clear brief (stack, level, must-haves). Every engineer on it has passed the same structured technical interview — 10 questions across conceptual depth, design, debugging, diagrams, and adversarial debug, scored by category against a fixed pass floor — and is invisible to you until they pass.
What does ShawSilicon's FPGA engineer vetting process include?
Engineers complete a structured technical interview with questions on real FPGA design challenges: gray-code CDC FIFO implementation, timing constraint definition for multi-clock designs, AXI protocol debugging, and DDR memory interface architecture. Scores are broken down by category.
How much does it cost to hire an FPGA engineer on ShawSilicon?
ShawSilicon charges companies a platform fee of 8–15%, versus the 25–50% placement fee charged by traditional semiconductor recruiting agencies. Engineers keep 100% of their billings — zero commission. Each engineer sets their own rate.
What FPGA tools and technologies do your engineers work with?
Our verified FPGA engineers have experience with Xilinx Vivado, Intel Quartus Prime Pro, Lattice Diamond, Synplify Pro, ModelSim, Verilator, and related EDA tools. Specializations include high-speed serial (PCIe, CXL, Ethernet), memory interfaces (DDR4, LPDDR5, HBM), and DSP/HLS design.
Do FPGA engineers on ShawSilicon work remotely?
Yes. ShawSilicon engineers are available for fully remote contract work. Our network spans the US, Canada, UK, EU, India, and other semiconductor hubs worldwide.
Other Semiconductor Specializations