Senior Staff Performance Engineer - DSP Architecture and Design

Company:

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area:

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > DSP Architecture and Design

General Summary:

We are seeking an experiencedSenior Performance Engineerto drive architectural analysis, performance modeling, and system optimization for next-generation computing platforms. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in processor and system architecture, performance analysis methodologies, and low-level software, including device drivers. This role requires close collaboration with hardware architects, software engineers, silicon teams, and product stakeholders to identify bottlenecks, optimize system performance, and influence future architectural direction.

Minimum Qualifications:

•    Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.
OR
Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field and 5+ years of Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.

•    2+ years of experience with high-performance microprocessor design.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and optimize performance of complex SoCs, processors, and heterogeneous computing systems.
• Develop performance models, benchmarks, and simulation environments to evaluate architectural tradeoffs.
• Investigate system-level bottlenecks across CPUs, DSPs, NPUs, memory subsystems, interconnects, and I/O fabrics.
• Collaborate with hardware and software teams to define performance requirements and drive performance closure.
• Analyze workload behavior and identify opportunities for improvements in performance, power efficiency, and scalability.
• Work with operating systems, firmware, and device drivers to understand hardware-software interactions and performance impacts.
• Develop profiling, tracing, and instrumentation methodologies to characterize system behavior.
• Interpret silicon measurements and correlate results with simulation and modeling data.
• Present findings and recommendations to engineering leadership and cross-functional teams.
• Contribute to architecture reviews and influence future processor and system designs.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 10+ years of industry experience in performance engineering, computer architecture, system architecture, or a related field.
• Strong understanding of:
  • Processor microarchitecture
  • Computer system architecture
  • Memory hierarchies and cache architectures
  • Interconnects and SoC design
  • Performance analysis and optimization techniques
• Experience with performance modeling, simulation, or architectural analysis tools.
• Proficiency in C/C++ and scripting languages such as Python.
• Experience developing, debugging, or optimizing Linux or Windows device drivers.
• Strong understanding of operating system internals and hardware-software interactions.
• Experience using profiling and performance analysis tools.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with DSP, AI/ML accelerators, GPU, or NPU architectures.
• Familiarity with virtualization technologies, IOMMU, PCIe, SR-IOV, or SIOV.
• Knowledge of power-performance tradeoff analysis and performance-per-watt optimization.
• Experience with silicon bring-up and post-silicon performance characterization.
• Understanding of cache coherence protocols and memory consistency models.
• Experience with large-scale performance benchmarking and workload characterization.

What You'll Bring

• Ability to translate complex technical data into actionable architectural recommendations.
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work across hardware and software disciplines.
• Passion for solving challenging performance problems and shaping future computing architectures.
• A data-driven approach to engineering decisions and performance optimization.

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EEO Employer: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification.

Qualcomm expects its employees to abide by all applicable policies and procedures, including but not limited to security and other requirements regarding protection of Company confidential information and other confidential and/or proprietary information, to the extent those requirements are permissible under applicable law.

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits:

$191,800.00 - $287,800.00

The above pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this job code for the location for which it has been posted. Even more importantly, please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Qualcomm.  We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for our annual bonus).  In addition, our highly competitive benefits package is designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that Qualcomm has to offer – and you can review more details about our US benefits at this link.

If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.