Emulation Hardware Support Manager

Kforce has a client that is seeking an Emulation Hardware Support Manager in Fremont, CA. Overview: We are seeking an experienced Emulation Hardware Support Manager to lead a global engineering team responsible for the deployment, reliability, maintenance, and operational support of large-scale FPGA-based hardware emulation environments. This is a highly visible technical leadership role supporting mission-critical emulation infrastructure across on-premises data centers, cloud-connected environments, and customer locations. The successful candidate will combine hands-on knowledge of hardware systems with strong people leadership, operational discipline, incident management, and infrastructure planning experience. You will lead a team of Emulation Hardware Support Engineers operating within a 24/7 support model and will be accountable for maintaining 99.9%+ system availability, improving incident response, scaling infrastructure, and continuously improving the reliability and supportability of the emulation environment. This position works closely with R&D, IT, facilities, customer-facing teams, and external hardware vendors, providing an important connection between hardware product development and real-world deployment and support. Key Responsibilities: Global Team Leadership:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a global team of 20+ Emulation Hardware Support Engineers supporting business-critical hardware environments
• Establish clear ownership, escalation paths, and operational expectations across multiple regions and time zones
• Build and manage 24/7 on-call and escalation rotations to ensure consistent worldwide support coverage

Develop technical training and knowledge-sharing programs focused on:

• FPGA-based emulation platforms
• Hardware troubleshooting and diagnostics
• Linux administration
• Network troubleshooting
• Firmware management

Requirements:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience
• 10+ years of experience working in hardware engineering, hardware operations, infrastructure support, data center operations, or related technical environments
• 5+ years of experience managing technical or engineering teams, ideally within a global or 24/7 operational environment
• Strong experience supporting FPGA-based hardware emulation platforms, such as Siemens Veloce or equivalent technologies
• Demonstrated knowledge of large-scale hardware troubleshooting, diagnostics, maintenance, and failure analysis
• Working knowledge of Linux administration and troubleshooting
• Understanding of network connectivity and infrastructure as it relates to complex hardware systems
• Experience managing high-severity technical incidents and coordinating cross-functional incident response
• Demonstrated experience improving operational metrics such as MTTR, uptime, escalation rates, and SLA performance
• Experience developing SOPs, operational processes, escalation procedures, and technical support documentation

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting emulation, semiconductor, ASIC/SoC development, FPGA, or hardware validation environments
• Experience managing hardware infrastructure distributed across multiple data centers or geographic regions
• Familiarity with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 environments and associated operational controls
• Experience developing or implementing automation around hardware monitoring, diagnostics, inventory management, or firmware deployment
• Experience partnering directly with hardware R&D or product engineering organizations
• Experience working with external hardware vendors and managing technical escalations
• Background supporting customer-facing hardware deployments or highly available engineering infrastructure