Director, Engineering | Principal Engineer/Manager

Qualcomm • San Diego, CA

133d • $207,600 - $311,400

About The Position

We're hiring a seasoned engineering leader to run software development for our enterprise AI organization. You'll lead a global team building full‑stack AI solutions on top of our enterprise AI platform—everything from production-grade chatbots, MCP servers, and workflow engines to agentic AI and automations that drive measurable business outcomes. This role owns global software delivery end‑to‑end: portfolio planning, architecture, execution, quality, and operations at scale. You'll partner closely across product, data, security, infra/cloud, and business teams to deliver secure, reliable, and compliant AI products used across the enterprise. You combine deep engineering leadership with hands-on technical judgment across Python, Rust, TypeScript, React/React Native, and modern cloud-native delivery (Docker, Kubernetes). You're comfortable running multiple concurrent projects, guiding frameworks and patterns, raising the engineering bar, and creating clarity in a fast-moving, multi-stakeholder environment. This role requires full-time onsite work in San Diego, CA (5 days per week).

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related field (Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or equivalent).
• 15+ years of overall software engineering experience with progressive leadership responsibility.
• ~10 years relevant leadership experience leading software engineering teams delivering enterprise products/platforms.
• Demonstrated success running global teams and delivering multiple concurrent projects in a complex enterprise environment.
• Strong technical depth in: Languages/Frameworks: Python, Rust, TypeScript; React and React Native for web/mobile.
• Cloud-Native Delivery: Docker, Kubernetes; CI/CD and environment promotion strategies.
• Data: SQL and NoSQL systems; Search/Elasticsearch (design, indexing, performance tuning).
• Enterprise AI solution delivery experience: building production-grade chatbots, MCP servers, workflow engines, and agentic AI/automations.
• Architecture and systems design expertise for distributed, event-driven, and API-first systems with strong reliability and security postures.
• Operational excellence: observability, SRE practices, incident management, and performance/cost optimization.
• Agentic frameworks: Semantic Kernel, LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen (or equivalents) and experience integrating enterprise tools via MCP.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills; proven ability to align executives and cross-functional partners.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in a relevant engineering discipline.
• LLM/AI ecosystem expertise: orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Semantic Kernel), RAG/search patterns, evaluation/guardrails, vector indexing; experience standardizing agentic patterns at scale.
• Mobile at scale: React Native architecture, release pipelines, app store operations, and mobile observability.
• DevSecOps & SRE tooling: IaC (Terraform/Helm), GitOps (ArgoCD/Flux), OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana, feature flags, canary/AB testing.
• Data & streaming: Kafka or equivalent, CDC, event sourcing, and data contracts; experience with feature stores and ML metadata systems a plus.
• MLOps familiarity: model registries, inference gateways, evaluation pipelines, and performance monitoring (latency/cost/quality).
• Identity & security: SSO, OAuth2/OIDC, RBAC/ABAC, secrets/KMS; compliance experience (e.g., SOX, HIPAA, GDPR) in enterprise settings.
• Portfolio/program management: establishing intake, prioritization, OKRs, and reporting for multi-team, multi-quarter initiatives.
• Cloud expertise (Azure/AWS/GCP) with cost governance and multi-environment strategies.
• Certifications: CKA/CKAD, major cloud certs, or security certs (e.g., CISSP) are beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Own global software delivery for our AI solutions portfolio—roadmaps, release plans, staffing, budgets, quality, and operational readiness across regions and time zones.
• Lead and grow a high-performing, global engineering team (managers and ICs); set standards for design, coding, testing, security, and documentation; cultivate a culture of ownership, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Deliver enterprise-grade AI applications: chatbots and virtual assistants, MCP servers, workflow/decision engines, and agentic automations for complex business processes.
• Drive architecture and technical strategy for full-stack solutions (web and mobile) and platform integrations (APIs, events, data, identity, observability).
• Scale with cloud-native practices: containerized services (Docker) orchestrated via Kubernetes; enforce IaC, GitOps, CI/CD, blue/green and canary strategies, and progressive delivery.
• Ensure data excellence across SQL/NoSQL/Search (incl. Elasticsearch): schema design, indexing, performance, backup/restore, governance, and cost management.
• Operationalize AI systems: define SLOs/SLAs, telemetry/observability (logs, metrics, traces), incident management, on-call rotations, and post-incident learning.
• Champion security and compliance by design: least-privilege access, secrets management, policy controls, PII handling, auditability, and adherence to enterprise standards.
• Manage a multi-project portfolio: intake & prioritization, cross-team dependencies, risk mitigation, change management, and executive stakeholder communication.
• Standardize frameworks & patterns for LLM orchestration, agentic workflows, retrieval/search, prompt and memory management, and evaluation/guardrails.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Data Science/ML, Platform/SRE, Security, and Business stakeholders to translate objectives into shippable, high-impact solutions.
• Measure what matters: establish OKRs and engineering KPIs (quality, reliability, velocity, cost); use data to guide decisions and continually raise the bar.
• Vendor and ecosystem management: evaluate tools and frameworks, negotiate licenses, manage partners, and ensure interoperability within the enterprise stack.

Benefits

• $207,600.00 - $311,400.00 salary range.
• Competitive annual discretionary bonus program.
• Opportunity for annual RSU grants.
• Comprehensive benefits package designed to support success at work, at home, and at play.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree