Field Applications Engineer (FAE) - San Jose, California, United States
$187,000 - $270,700 USD yearly
Originally posted 20 August 2026 by the employer.
Support customers adopting Altera FPGAs, SoCs, and embedded solutions.
About the role
What you'll do
- Serve as the primary technical interface for customers designing with Altera FPGAs, SoCs, IP, and software tools.
- Understand customer architectures, performance requirements, and design constraints to recommend optimal device families, IP blocks, and development flows.
- Deliver technical presentations, hands-on workshops, and product demonstrations tailored to customer needs.
- Support customers through the full design cycle, from concept and RTL development to timing closure, power optimization, and board bring-up.
- Troubleshoot complex issues involving FPGA logic, embedded processors, high-speed interfaces, memory subsystems, and power architectures.
- Partner with sales teams to support opportunity qualification, competitive positioning, and technical strategy.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
- 10+ years of experience in FPGA design, digital logic design, embedded systems, or applications engineering.
- Strong proficiency in RTL (Verilog/VHDL), timing analysis, synthesis, and FPGA implementation flows.
- Experience with high-speed interfaces (PCIe, DDR, Ethernet), embedded processors, or board-level design.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and customer-facing skills.
- Ability to travel to customer sites as needed.
Nice to have
- Hands-on experience with Altera/Intel Quartus, Platform Designer, and associated IP.
- Familiarity with AI/ML acceleration, DSP, or hardware/software co-design.
- Experience supporting enterprise customers or large-scale deployments.
- Strong debugging skills using logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and embedded debug tools.
Skills: Field Applications Engineer, FPGA, SoC, RTL (Verilog/VHDL), timing analysis, customer support
This role has been open 57 days — well below the 70-day median for Applications FAE roles.
Applications FAE · RTL Design
|
Open roles in category
25
|
Median days open
70 d
|
Median salary
—
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Altera | All employers we track in this specialty (25 roles · 9 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 25 |
| Median days open | 32 d | 70 d (−38 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | — |
Skills observed across this category: Field Applications Engineer, FPGA, SoC, RTL (Verilog/VHDL), timing analysis, customer support
Who's hiring in this category
- Altera (this employer) · 9 open roles · median 32 d
- Arrow Electronics · 5 open roles · median 70 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 5 open roles · median 86 d
- Achronix · 1 open role · median 213 d
- AMD · 1 open role · median 58 d
- Arm Holdings · 1 open role · median 108 d
How we counted: 25 open Applications FAE (RTL Design) roles from 9 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 16 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Figures refresh nightly.