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Qualcomm

Qualcomm

Designs, manufactures, and licenses wireless semiconductors

SoC Platform Architect - SoC Architecture

Full-Time
$211.9k - $317.9k/yr

+ Annual discretionary bonus + Annual RSU grants

Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, PhD
San Diego, CA, USA
In Person
Company Historically Provides H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • Excellent communication, documentation, and interpersonal skills with the ability to convey proposals and interact effectively across a distributed multidisciplinary organization.
  • Strong foundation in silicon design principles and architectural trade-offs.
  • Ability to span and connect levels of abstraction across system design, high-level languages, operating systems, hardware/software interfaces, microarchitecture, and silicon implementation.
  • Background in IP or SoC architecture and/or front-end design or verification at the microarchitecture level.
  • Demonstrated deep technical knowledge and achievements at the SoC, subsystem, or large IP levels as a microarchitect or architect.
  • Ability to apply appropriate abstractions and quantitative analysis for problem definition and solutions.
  • Experience using, improving, and developing tools for analysis and modeling, including functional and performance simulators and profilers.
  • Programming ability for modeling and automation using object-oriented C++ and Python, with experience in software development best practices including reviews, unit testing, and version control.
  • Ability and desire to develop and improve architecture methodologies for experiments and analysis.
  • Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science, or a related field.
  • At least 8 years of Systems Engineering or related work experience with a Bachelor's degree, 7 years with a Master's degree, or 6 years with a PhD.
  • At least 2 years of experience in one or more system architecture technology areas and products.
  • Candidates with primarily a microarchitecture or design background must have contributions demonstrating higher-level analysis and design.
Responsibilities
  • Create highly scalable SoC architectures in the areas of network-on-chip, system memory management units, interrupts, debug, power management, and security.
  • Comprehend product requirements to steer generation of the proper architecture.
  • Perform trade-off analysis in the solution space to produce the optimal architecture.
  • Collaborate with architects, technical leads, hardware engineers, and software engineers from various functional areas to derive an architectural solution that integrates into the overall SoC.
  • Generate detailed architectural specifications and work closely with the design team to implement the architecture.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience in general SoC architecture, including serving as an SoC architecture lead.
  • SoC architectures involving heterogeneous compute, network-on-chip or interconnect, memory systems, multicore, multi-die, cache hierarchies, shared memory, input/output, coherency, compression, and security.
  • Understanding of different packaging technologies and their trade-offs.
  • Resource and power management.
  • Security architecture.
  • System-level debug.
  • Safety, reliability, and high-resilience or high-availability systems.
  • Artificial intelligence and machine learning.
  • Control and real-time systems.
  • High-level operating systems such as Android, Linux, and Windows.
  • Real-time operating systems such as Zephyr and FreeRTOS.
  • Front-end digital hardware design or verification.
  • Arm system architectures such as Cortex-A, Cortex-R, Cortex-M, SMMU, GIC, and CoreSight.
  • RISC-V architecture.
  • High-speed input/output technologies such as USB, PCIe, and CXL.
  • External memory and storage architectures such as LPDDR, NAND Flash, and NOR Flash.
  • Networking and connectivity technologies such as Ethernet, WLAN, cellular, and CAN.
  • Behavioral, functional, and performance modeling.
  • Power and performance optimization through simulation and modeling.
  • Simulator architectures and frameworks based on C++ or Python.
  • Analytical modeling for performance and power.

About the company

Qualcomm designs and licenses semiconductor technologies for wireless connectivity used in mobile devices, cars, and IoT. Its products include system-on-chips and RF components, plus a large portfolio of patents that it licenses to other companies. The company combines end-to-end semiconductor design with IP licensing to serve mobile, automotive, and IoT markets. Its goal is to expand wireless technology adoption by delivering standards-based silicon solutions and monetizing its intellectual property to support ongoing connectivity innovation.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

San Diego, California

Founded

1985

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Amazon's September 8, 2026 pact targets up to $60 billion through 2036.
  • Qualcomm's September 8, 2026 Dragonwing IQ-8275 Ubuntu certification strengthens industrial AI deployment.
  • September 2026 Snapdragon X2 driver updates improve gaming compatibility across 22 titles.

What critics are saying

  • Apple's modem exit accelerates in September 2026, cutting Qualcomm's highest-margin royalty stream.
  • Amazon's custom-chip deal prices data-center growth below handset margins, pressuring 2027 profitability.
  • NVIDIA, AMD, and internal hyperscaler silicon can sideline Qualcomm's fledgling data-center ambitions.

What makes Qualcomm unique

  • Qualcomm owns cellular patents and modem silicon, anchoring handset licensing economics.
  • Snapdragon X2 and Dragonwing pair power-efficient Arm compute with broad software certification.
  • Amazon chose Qualcomm for multi-generation AI data-center silicon, validating hyperscaler-custom design.

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Benefits

Premium-free health coverage

Onsite health & fitness centers

Retirement programs

Disability & life insurance programs

Tuition reimbursement

Product discounts

Flexible time off

Parental leave

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

2%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

0%
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