Q

Qualcomm

Designs mobile chips and licenses wireless patents

Hardware Design Engineer - Hardware Engineering

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
$169.8k - $254.6k+ Annual discretionary bonus + Annual RSU grants
Senior, Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, PhD
Austin, TX, USA
In PersonTravel to development and customer sites as needed, including ODM/JDM partners in Taiwan and internationally.
Hardware EngineeringBoard & Electronics Design, Hardware Systems Integration
Company Historically Provides H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • Experience in system-, card-, or rack-level development, including architecture, design, validation, and deployment of enterprise-class hardware platforms.
  • Experience integrating rack-level systems, including chassis, backplane, cabling, airflow, and thermal management across multiple cards or modules.
  • Familiarity with rack-scale power delivery, including power distribution units, voltage regulator modules, power management integrated circuits, and power budgeting across multiple boards.
  • Experience with rack-level diagnostics and bring-up, including debugging interconnects, signal integrity across long traces and cables, and system-level validation.
  • Understanding of rack-level mechanical constraints, electromagnetic interference shielding, and compliance with data center deployment standards.
  • Experience collaborating with original design manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers on rack-level design and manufacturing, including review of mechanical drawings, thermal simulations, and compliance testing.
  • Deep knowledge of PCIe cards, motherboards, daughtercards, and backplane signal and power delivery.
  • Expertise in chassis design, airflow optimization, and thermal management.
  • Understanding of system software operation from bootloader through operating system and application layers.
  • Experience qualifying power management integrated circuits, voltage regulators, clock buffers, flash memory, and connectors for complex card and rack-level designs.
  • Hands-on experience designing dense, high-layer-count printed circuit boards with 8–20 or more layers.
  • Skill in PCIe add-in card or module design and debugging high-performance x86 and ARM systems.
  • Familiarity with JTAG tools for hardware bring-up and debugging.
  • Experience with networking switches and high-speed Ethernet interfaces.
  • Knowledge of high-speed serial I/O at 6–10 or more Gbps, PCIe Gen5/6, LPDDR4x/5x, DDR4/5, and 200/400/800 GbE.
  • Experience with long printed circuit board and cable topologies of 0.35–1.5 meters, signal integrity, and compliance with current standards.
  • Ability to debug at packet and protocol level across link, transport, transaction, and command layers.
  • Experience with LPDDR4x memory technologies, DIMM layout, and validation.
  • Expertise in clock distribution, power distribution, SMBus, PMBus, SPI, PWM/Tach, and BMC integration.
  • Proficiency with schematic capture and printed circuit board layout tools, including Cadence Allegro and Mentor Expedition.
  • Experience with circuit simulation tools such as SPICE and signal and power integrity analysis.
  • Skill using laboratory equipment, including oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, SMBus, and serial debuggers.
  • Experience collaborating with original design manufacturers on joint designs, schematic and layout reviews, and compliance with Qualcomm design guidelines.
  • Good understanding of the x86 firmware and software stack and firmware architecture.
  • Experience with baseboard management controller hardware/software integration and management.
  • Familiarity with regulatory, environmental, and compliance testing for rack-level systems.
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or a related field and 6+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience; OR Master's degree in those fields and 5+ years of related experience; OR PhD in those fields and 4+ years of related experience.
Responsibilities
  • Design and develop motherboards, add-in cards, and modules for Qualcomm system-on-chip and system-in-package products.
  • Work with cross-functional teams, including mechanical, thermal, signal integrity, PTE, regulatory, validation, and manufacturing teams, to execute projects from concept to production.
  • Support rack-level design and integration of cards, servers, and networking switches.
  • Lead schematic design, printed circuit board layouts, design reviews, component selection, mechanical and thermal design, and development of test plans.
  • Co-develop functional specifications for systems, cards, subsystems, and rack-level architectures.
  • Collaborate with internal teams and original design manufacturers to develop and support customer-specific hardware and system requirements.
  • Facilitate consensus on technical trade-offs at hardware, software, and chip-design levels.
  • Support architecture and card designs covering accelerator system-on-chips, memory, input/output, power delivery, electrical and mechanical integration, and printed circuit board definition and design.
  • Participate in designing and developing rack-level inference solutions aligned with customer requirements and system-level performance goals.
  • Resolve architecture and design issues across system, card, and rack levels.
  • Assist in bringing up and debugging hardware systems, cards, and rack-level configurations.
  • Provide technical oversight of factory and manufacturing processes to ensure quality and consistency across rack-level deployments.
  • Contribute to statements of work and original design manufacturer product requirements, and drive technical milestones and deliverables.
  • Coordinate across development sites, including Qualcomm locations and original design manufacturer/joint design manufacturer partners in Taiwan and internationally.
  • Travel to development and customer sites as needed to support rack-level solution deployment and validation.
  • Influence and communicate technical recommendations across disciplines and geographic locations.
  • Coordinate and deliver technical training for original design manufacturers, focusing on rack-level system integration and deployment.
Desired Qualifications
  • Master's degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
  • 10+ years of hardware engineering or systems development experience or related work experience.
  • 4+ years of experience with circuit design, such as digital, analog, or radio frequency design.
  • 4+ years of experience using schematic capture and circuit simulation software.
  • 4+ years of experience with hardware design and measurement instruments such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and debug tools.

About the company

Qualcomm designs the Snapdragon processors and modems inside many Android phones, and it licenses its wireless patents to device makers around the world. It helped commercialize CDMA, the cellular technology behind 3G networks, and its patents cover core parts of the 4G and 5G standards that phones use to connect. The company does not run its own chip factories; contract foundries make its chips, which it sells to makers of phones, PCs, cars, and connected devices. Device makers also pay Qualcomm royalties for using its patented technology, which forms a second business alongside chip sales. Qualcomm was founded in 1985 and is based in San Diego, California.

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

  • Cars are a second engine: automotive chip revenue rose 61% to $1.59 billion in the June 2026 quarter.
  • Pays for learning: Qualcomm funds tuition assistance and apprenticeships and sells staff discounted shares through a stock purchase plan.
  • Profits support stability: Qualcomm earned $2.21 non-GAAP per share in the June 2026 quarter despite a 4% sales dip.

What critics are saying

  • Apple is walking away: Qualcomm expects Apple revenue to fall about 50% from the September to December 2026 quarter.
  • Data-center deals start thin: in July 2026, management said custom chips will cut chip gross margin 1.5 to 2 points.
  • Cuts keep trickling: Qualcomm filed WARN notices in April 2026 covering 144 layoffs, including 68 in San Diego.

What makes Qualcomm unique

  • Phones are only part of it: handsets were $5.09 billion of $8.50 billion chip revenue in fiscal Q3 2026.
  • Cloud giants buy its custom chips: two hyperscaler design wins start producing revenue in the December 2026 quarter.
  • It owns an AI software layer: Qualcomm completed its Modular acquisition in July 2026 for open generative AI software.

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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

6 month growth

3%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

0%
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