Is FPGA the Best Engineering Career? With Adam Taylor

Is FPGA the Best Engineering Career? With Adam Taylor

From OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast by Altium LLC.

April 14, 2026 · 37 min · Episode 338

About this episode

The episode explores the career prospects in FPGA engineering with insights from Adam Taylor.

Is FPGA engineering the best career path for electronics engineers today? In this episode of the Altium OnTrack Podcast, host Zach Peterson sits down with Adam Taylor — founder of Adiuvo Engineering and the FPGA Horizons conference — to explore the full landscape of FPGA development. From how Adam accidentally fell into FPGAs as a new graduate to building one of the UK's most talked-about technical conferences, this conversation covers what it really means to build a career around programmable logic. Adam shares why he believes engineers should cultivate broad skill sets, how FPGAs have evolved from simple glue logic into advanced compute platforms, and what the future holds for FPGA professionals in an AI-driven world. The episode also dives into the growing intersection of FPGA development and PCB design, the collaboration challenges that arise when hardware teams work in silos, and how AI tools like agentic coding assistants are beginning to change the way engineers write RTL. Adam also gives an inside look at FPGA Horizons — his community-driven, vendor-neutral conference now expanding to the US through a partnership with PCEA at PCB East. Whether you're a seasoned FPGA…

People in this episode

Host: Zach Peterson

Guest: Adam Taylor

Topics covered

  • FPGA engineering
  • career paths
  • programmable logic
  • AI in engineering
  • PCB design
  • collaboration challenges

Keywords

  • FPGA
  • engineering career
  • programmable logic
  • AI tools
  • PCB design
  • RTL
  • FPGA Horizons

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Adiuvo Engineering, FPGA Horizons, PCEA

Places: UK, US, PCB East

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