Joel Vandergriendt

FPGA Design & Embedded Software Engineer

Professional Summary

Computer Engineer with 10 years of experience in FPGA development, high-performance computing, and embedded systems. Proven track record delivering complex solutions for Fortune 500 companies, hyperscalers, and leading technology firms. Expert in machine learning acceleration, high-speed networking protocols, and precision timing systems.

Work Experience

MicroRidge Technology
Independent Consulting Engineer
2021 - Present
  • FPGA Vendor:
    • Developed Ethernet loop-back example for Next Generation FPGA with Network-On-Chip enabling customer evaluation
  • Ideon Technologies:
    • Maintained and developed FPGA solution interfacing with specialized muon detection hardware
    • Maintained and developed embedded firmware on AMD Zynq 7000 series ARM CPU utilizing FreeRTOS for real time data aquisition
    • Implemented embedded firmware for STM32 based network switch
  • Atomic Rules:
    • Implemented IEEE 1588-2008 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) slave solution, achieving sub-microsecond synchronization accuracy
    • Developed multi-port 100GbE Ethernet packet capture and replay solution
    • Maintained FPGA to HOST PCIe Data mover
  • GPU Manufacturer:
    • Developed FPGA based board management controller
  • Tier 1 Cloud Compute Provider:
    • Developed proprietary precision time synchronization for data centre infrastructure achieving single digit nanosecond precision
    • Developed FPGA based board management controller for terabit scale network switch infrastructure
Microchip Technology
Senior Engineer
2019 - 2021
  • Developed and maintained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) inference engine for PolarFire FPGAs
  • Created comprehensive CNN framework and embedded software stack, supporting multiple model architectures
  • Implemented automated testing and validation pipelines for FPGA-accelerated ML workloads
Vectorblox Computing
FPGA Engineer
2015 - 2019
  • Designed and implemented SIMD processing engine for high-performance computing applications on FPGAs
  • Developed custom RISC-V soft processor optimized for FPGA deployment with vector processing extensions
  • Developed and maintained embedded firmware stack supporting both hardware platforms

Education

Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering
University of British Columbia (UBC)
2014

Technical Skills

Programming Languages

SystemVerilog VHDL C/C++ Python TCL RISC-V Assembly

FPGA Development

Xilinx Vivado Intel Quartus Prime Microsemi Libero ModelSim Questa Verilator

Networking & Protocols

100GbE Ethernet PCIe IEEE 1588 PTP I2C SPI UART AXI4 Avalon

Specialized Domains

Machine Learning/AI Acceleration Computer Vision High-Precision Timing High-Speed Digital Design

Development Tools

Jenkins CI/CD Github Actions Docker CMake Git Linux FreeRTOS

Hardware Platforms

Xilinx 7series/Ultrascale+/Versal Altera Agilex Microchip PolarFire Achronix Speedster7t Lattice MachXO3