---
title: 'Engineering Manager - FPGA & Hardware - Enforced Security at OPSWAT'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-fpga-hardware-enforced-security-opswat-tampa-shdyqrbjq1ce'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-18'
---

# Engineering Manager - FPGA & Hardware - Enforced Security at OPSWAT

- **Company:** OPSWAT
- **Location:** Tampa, FL
- **Posted:** 2026-10-16
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-18
- **Apply:** https://www.opswat.com/jobs/4744483005?gh_jid=4744483005

## Job description

OPSWAT, a global leader in IT, OT, and ICS critical infrastructure cybersecurity, delivers an end-to-end platform that gives public and private sector organizations and enterprises the critical advantage needed to protect their complex networks, secure their devices, and ensure compliance. Over the last 20 years our commitment to innovative technology has earned the trust of more than 1,700 organizations, governments, and institutions globally, solidifying our role in protecting the world’s critical infrastructure and securing our way of life.

## Role Summary

MetaDefender NetWall is OPSWAT's hardware-enforced boundary between networks that must never be able to talk back — a combined hardware and software product deployed across critical infrastructure, defense, and government. This role builds the layer that makes that guarantee physical rather than declared: protocol termination, one-way transport, and content filtering enforced in FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) silicon, at rates no general-purpose processor can sustain.

The Engineering Manager owns the FPGA discipline end to end — silicon and board selection, RTL (Register-Transfer Level) architecture, verification strategy, timing closure, toolchains, IP (Intellectual Property) licensing, the bring-up lab, and the team that does the work — and partners daily with software engineering, product, certification, QA (Quality Assurance), manufacturing, and supply chain. Success in the first twelve months means a working hardware datapath, a verified first protocol running in gateware, and an FPGA team that did not exist before — not the volume of RTL written.

What Comes With the Role

- An installed base across energy, manufacturing, defense, government, transportation, and healthcare, already running on the NetWall unidirectional and bilateral security gateways
- An existing Common Criteria EAL4+ certification to extend rather than earn, and certified optical isolation hardware already in the product
- An R&D (Research and Development) organization of approximately 50 engineers, and the MetaDefender® platform — Multiscanning, Deep CDR™ Technology, Proactive DLP™ Technology, and policy enforcement — to build on rather than replicate
- A funded multi-year program to take the line to 100 Gbps and to NCDSMO (National Cross Domain Strategy and Management Office) Raise the Bar
- Budget and hiring authority to build the FPGA team from the first engineer, outside the standard requisition process

## Key Responsibilities

- Own the FPGA discipline for the NetWall line — RTL architecture, verification strategy, timing closure, coding standards, IP selection, build and regression infrastructure, and the hiring and development of the engineers who do it
- Select the silicon and the boards — evaluate FPGA families and COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) cards against sustained line rate, fabric and transceiver headroom, PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) generation, optical cage compatibility, lead time, and licence cost — and own the vendor relationships that follow
- Build the one-way datapath in gateware — framing, link supervision, no back-channel, fail-closed behaviour on every error path, and re-assembly on the receiving side
- Move protocol termination into hardware — TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) state machines, and in time TLS (Transport Layer Security) termination and re-origination — terminating on the sending side and re-originating on the receiving side with no acknowledgement path across the boundary
- Own verification as a first-class deliverable — UVM (Universal Verification Methodology) environments, constrained-random regression, coverage closure, and formal proof of the properties certification depends on: always invoked, non-bypassable, fail-closed
- Deliver the design independence that certification requires — two filter implementations on two silicon lineages, two toolchains, two teams, one shared implementation-neutral specification, and the analysis that demonstrates no common-mode defect can exist
- Own the hardware and software interface with software engineering — PCIe endpoints, DMA (Direct Memory Access) engines, driver contracts, and the boundary decisions that determine what runs in gateware and what runs on the host
- Partner with certification on evidence as the design is built, not afterwards — design documentation, requirement traceability, and the authorship provenance a Common Criteria or NCDSMO assessment will ask for years after the code was written
- Work AI-natively with your team — use modern AI and agentic tools to explore architectures, generate and review testbenches, analyze waveforms and regression output, and accelerate verification, while holding provenance discipline on anything entering the certified boundary
- Own timing, area, power, and cost — close timing on large designs at line rate, and know the device, licence, and board cost your architecture commits the product to
- Own the bring-up lab — boards, optics, traffic generation, protocol analysis, and the test capability the program depends on
- Build and lead the team — recruit senior FPGA engineers in a scarce market, set the technical bar, and grow the discipline from the first hire to two independent implementation teams

Required Qualifications

- Five or more years in FPGA development, including production RTL in a shipping product and experience leading or managing FPGA engineers
- Deep SystemVerilog or VHDL, with genuine ownership of architecture, verification, and timing closure on large designs — not module-level contribution
- High-speed interface experience — multi-gigabit transceivers, Ethernet MAC (Media Access Control) and PCS (Physical Coding Sublayer), PCIe endpoints, and DMA
- Demonstrated protocol implementation in hardware — parsing, state machines, or offload — not only datapath or signal processing
- Verification depth: UVM, constrained-random and coverage-driven methodology, and exposure to formal property verification
- Fluent in at least one major toolchain — AMD Vivado or Altera Quartus Prime Pro — and able to stand up build and regression infrastructure from scratch
- Demonstrated AI-native working style, with concrete examples of using AI and agentic tools to design, verify, analyze, and document — an expectation of this role, not a nice-to-have
- Technical depth sufficient to hold meaningful conversations about Linux drivers, networking, security architecture, and system performance on either side of the hardware boundary
- US person — United States citizen or lawful permanent resident — and eligible for a security clearance
- Bias toward action — able to make good decisions without perfect information and keep the team moving
- Professional fluency in English

Nice-to-Have

- Cross-domain solutions, data diodes, guards, or other high-assurance security hardware
- Common Criteria, FIPS 140-3, or NCDSMO Raise the Bar experience as a technical contributor or owner
- Active US security clearance
- Formal verification of security properties, or design assurance in avionics, rail, or nuclear instrumentation
- 100 Gbps networking, TCP offload, or TLS acceleration in hardware
- Experience across both AMD and Altera toolchains
- Critical infrastructure, OT (Operational Technology), or industrial environments

OPSWAT is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to providing an environment where equal employment opportunities are extended to all employees and applicants, free of discrimination and harassment of any type. All employment decisions are based on individual qualifications, job requirements, and business needs without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Recruiting Agencies: we do not accept unsolicited resumes from third party agencies for any of our open positions. To submit resumes for our jobs, there must be a recruiting contract approved by our legal team and endorsed by both parties. We are currently not accepting additional 3rd party agencies at this time.

## About OPSWAT

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: OPSWAT protects the world’s critical infrastructure by securing every file, device, and data transfer across IT, OT, and air-gapped networks using its AI-powered MetaDefender Platform.
- **Entity Type**: Private (venture-backed; $125M total funding raised; bootstrapped for many years)
- **Headquarters**: Tampa, Florida, United States
- **Founded**: 2002
- **Founders**: Benny Czarny

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Cybersecurity (critical infrastructure protection)
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise, Government – including nuclear facilities, defense networks, energy grids, financial institutions, and other mission-critical organizations.
- **Mission / purpose**: “Trust no file. Trust no device.” – prevent known, unknown, and AI-generated threats from reaching the systems the world depends on.

## Products & Services
- **MetaDefender Platform** (SaaS / On-premises / Hybrid): Unified cybersecurity platform providing file security, email security, removable media protection, network security, cross-domain transfer, endpoint compliance, and cloud security. Key technologies: Deep CDR™ (Content Disarm and Reconstruction), Metascan™ Multiscanning (30+ anti-malware engines), AI-driven threat prediction, Adaptive Sandbox, Proactive DLP, and File-Based Vulnerability Assessment.
- **Peripheral & Removable Media Protection**: Kiosk-based scanning and compliance enforcement for USB drives and transient assets.
- **Managed File Transfer**: Secure cross-boundary file movement with built-in threat prevention, policy enforcement, and audit trails.
- **Data Diode & Security Gateway Solutions**: Hardware-enforced unidirectional data transfer for air-gapped and segmented networks.
- **Email Security**: Neutralizes weaponized attachments and embedded threats using Deep CDR and Multiscanning.
- **Access & Endpoint Security (OESIS Framework)**: Assesses device posture before granting network access, covering managed and unmanaged devices.
- **OPSWAT Academy**: Professional certification in Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) – 28 courses, 456,000+ registered students, 268,000+ certified.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue $110M (LinkedIn, 2025 estimate); Total Funding $125M
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Not explicitly listed in search results, but the company is trusted by 98% of U.S. nuclear power facilities and 1,500+ organizations in 80+ countries
- **Growth Signals**: 854 employees (+16.9% YoY, +167 people); operates in 28 countries (including Vietnam, Romania, Hungary, UK, Israel); pre-validated against NIST 800-53, CMMC 2.0, NERC CIP, Zero Trust, ISO 27001, SOC 2, NEI 08-09 Rev 6

## Competitive Advantages
- **Prevention-first philosophy** – stops threats before execution, unlike detection-based tools.
- **Deep CDR™ Technology** – reconstructs files to remove malware while preserving usability.
- **Multiscanning with 30+ anti-malware engines** – near 100% detection rate.
- **AI embedded natively** – predicts and neutralizes AI-generated threats.
- **Air-gap and cross-domain expertise** – data diodes and security gateways for the most sensitive networks.
- **Regulatory compliance** – validated for the world’s most rigorous standards in nuclear, defense, and critical infrastructure.

## Strategic Focus
- **Deepening AI capabilities** in threat prediction and content verification.
- **Expanding the MetaDefender Platform** to cover more attack surfaces (Cloud, OT, IT).
- **Growing the OPSWAT Academy** to train a global workforce in CIP.
- **Scaling global reach** – already in 28 countries, targeting more government and enterprise segments.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Mission-oriented, innovative, transparent, and collaborative. “You are trusted to do your job” – teams have ownership and autonomy. Open communication across all levels.
- **Remote / Hybrid / Office**: Flexible-work arrangements; global offices in Tampa, Vietnam, Romania, Hungary, UK, Israel, and others.
- **Compensation & Benefits**: Competitive salaries, excellent insurance, stock options, generous PTO, multifaceted reward programs, quarterly/annual reviews.
- **Workplace Wellness**: Green office spaces, workout/exercise facilities, friendly environment, work-life balance emphasis.
- **Training & Development**: OPSWAT Academy provides privileged CIP certification; mentorship and career growth programs.
- **Recognition**: Named one of the best companies to work for in Asia by HR Asia Magazine.

## Sources
1. [OPSWAT Website](https://www.opswat.com/)
2. [OPSWAT Company Page](https://www.opswat.com/company)
3. [OPSWAT About Page](https://www.opswat.com/company/about)
4. [OPSWAT Careers Page](https://www.opswat.com/careers)
5. [OPSWAT LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/opswat)

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