CPU Tools, Platform & QA - Staff / Senior Staff Engineer
Qualcomm · Posted Oct 30
Semiconductor, 5G wireless technology, mobile platform, and AI computing solutions
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About the role
Qualcomm’s Hardware Engineering group develops and validates hardware systems for next-generation products. This role sits in CPU tools, platform, and QA, covering pre-silicon testbenches, emulation, firmware/bare-metal environments, silicon platforms, PnP telemetry, and regression automation. The Staff / Senior Staff Engineer will define QA and validation strategy, build automated regression and telemetry pipelines, lead cross-functional debug, and mentor engineers across CPU programs.
What you will do
- Define and drive end-to-end QA and validation strategy for CPU tools and platforms across:
- Pre-silicon testbenches
- Emulation platforms
- Firmware / bare-metal environments
- Silicon platforms
- Post-silicon labs
- Own quality and validation of CPU infrastructure including:
- CPU firmware and low-level software
- Platform testbenches
- PnP infrastructure
- Telemetry and data-collection frameworks
- Regression and automation infrastructure
- Drive Power & Performance (PnP) framework validation, including automated execution, data collection, analysis, regression detection, and correlation across platforms.
- Develop and maintain telemetry regression frameworks to track CPU performance, power, functional, and system-level metrics across builds, platforms, and silicon generations.
- Establish automated nightly/weekly regression pipelines, including:
- Test execution
- Telemetry collection
- Golden-data comparison
- Performance/power deviation analysis
- Regression detection
- Failure triage
- Dashboards and reporting
- Build mechanisms to correlate emulation, testbench, and silicon results, enabling early identification of potential silicon issues.
- Define quality gates and release criteria for CPU tools, firmware, PnP infrastructure, telemetry, and platform releases.
- Drive root-cause analysis of failures spanning CPU architecture, firmware, tools, test infrastructure, emulation, and silicon.
- Identify systemic gaps in test coverage, telemetry, automation, and regression infrastructure and drive solutions across engineering organizations.
- Develop scalable frameworks that transition CPU validation from manual execution to automated, data-driven QA.
- Partner closely with CPU architecture, design, firmware, CAD, validation, performance, power, emulation, and post-silicon teams.
- Lead technical initiatives across multiple CPU programs and generations.
- Mentor engineers and provide technical direction to distributed engineering teams.
- Define methodology for CPU power and performance characterization and regression.
- Build automated pipelines for collecting and analyzing:
- CPU performance metrics
- Frequency / Fmax behavior
- Power metrics
- Performance counters / telemetry
- Workload-level KPIs
- Platform health metrics
- Establish golden baselines and deviation thresholds for automated regression detection.
- Develop correlation between pre-silicon models, emulation, and silicon telemetry.
- Detect performance/power regressions early and drive cross-functional debug to root cause.
- Build dashboards providing clear visibility into CPU quality, performance, power, and platform health.
- Enable scalable telemetry analysis across large regression datasets and multiple CPU programs.
- Drive technical strategy and architecture, not just execute individual projects.
- Own quality across the Tools → Fir...
Skills used in this role
What the employer is looking for
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 5+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
- 10+ years of relevant engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership at Staff/Senior Staff level.
- Strong understanding of CPU architecture, system architecture, and low-level software.
- Experience in CPU validation, post-silicon, emulation, firmware, performance, power, or system-level engineering.
- Strong programming skills in C/C++ and Python.
- Experience developing automation, regression, CI/CD, telemetry, and QA frameworks.
- Strong debugging skills across hardware/software boundaries.
- Experience analyzing large datasets and identifying performance, power, functional, or telemetry regressions.
- Ability to lead complex cross-functional debug and drive issues to closure.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with ARM / ARM64 CPU architecture and ISA.
- Experience with CPU Power & Performance (PnP) validation.
- Experience with CPU performance counters, telemetry, profiling, and workload characterization.
- Experience with Veloce, Palladium, or equivalent emulation platforms.
- Experience with CPU firmware, bare-metal environments, Linux, and low-level debugging.
- Experience with post-silicon CPU validation and silicon debug.
- Experience developing large-scale regression infrastructure and data analytics.
- Experience establishing golden-data based regression and automated quality dashboards.
- Experience across multiple CPU generations or complex SoC programs.
Benefits and support
- Compensation and benefits are detailed in the job posting
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a global leader in the development and commercialization of foundational technologies for the wireless industry, including mobile processors, 5G, and on-device artificial intelligence. The company designs and markets digital communications products, semiconductor solutions, and system software used globally across smartphones, automotive solutions, IoT devices, and computing systems. Through extensive R&D and intellectual property licensing, Qualcomm powers a highly interconnected and smarter world.
- Industry
- Semiconductors
- Company size
- 50000+ employees
- Founded
- 1985
- Location
- San Diego, California, USA
- Funding stage
- Public Company
Funding
Public Company · $53M raised
- 2018-11-01Grant
Leadership
President and Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
James H. Thompson
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Marketing Officer
Ann Chaplin
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
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