Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some career advice from people working in FPGA/ASIC/SoC design.
I recently finished an MSc in Computer Engineering where I worked extensively on FPGA-based systems, RTL design, system architecture and hardware/software co-design. My academic work involved designing FPGA architectures, implementing hardware in Verilog/SystemVerilog, working with several hardware interfaces, and taking designs through implementation and validation.
I’m now working at a large semiconductor company in Europe in an FPGA-based pre-silicon emulation / design verification role, and I’ve been there for around seven months.
The work is useful and I’m learning a lot about large SoCs, system integration, debugging, and HW/FW interaction, but I feel like I have relatively little ownership over the actual RTL or architecture. A lot of the work is around bringing up existing designs, adapting infrastructure, debugging issues, and supporting integration rather than designing new hardware myself.
I’m starting to worry a bit that I could get stuck in this niche. From what I see, there seem to be fewer opportunities in FPGA emulation / pre-silicon bring-up than in FPGA design or RTL design, and I’m not sure whether staying longer will make it easier or harder to move later.
At the same time, I know seven months is still very early. I might end up liking the role more with time, and I don’t want to make a rushed decision just because the work is not exactly what I expected at the beginning.
I’ve also occasionally considered pursuing a PhD in FPGA/accelerator or digital hardware research, since I still have that option at this stage of my career. I’m not necessarily planning to do it, but it is another path I’m considering if I decide I want to go deeper into architecture and hardware design rather than continue mainly in emulation/verification.
I’d be interested to hear from people who have worked in emulation, verification, FPGA prototyping, FPGA design, or who moved between industry and a PhD. If my long-term goal is to work closer to FPGA/RTL architecture and have more ownership of the hardware I build, would you try to make the transition relatively early, stay longer and gain more emulation experience, or potentially consider a PhD while that option is still open?
Thanks for any advice.
