Senior Staff Software Engineer

Qualcomm • San Diego, CA

1d • $169,800 - $254,600

About The Position

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Linux Kernel and Systems Software team, you will contribute to the architecture, development, optimization, and commercialization of Linux kernel technologies for Qualcomm’s next-generation ARM- and RISC-V-based platforms. This is a senior-level individual contributor position requiring deep technical expertise and hands-on Linux kernel and systems software development experience. The work addresses complex topics including CPU scheduling and topology, power and performance management, workload optimization, virtualization, memory management, and hardware/software interaction.

You will collaborate with hardware architects, kernel developers, firmware teams, power and performance teams, virtualization teams, and other software organizations to develop and optimize systems software for current and future platforms. You will independently investigate difficult problems, contribute to architecture and design decisions, develop production-quality kernel software, and apply technical expertise throughout platform development and commercialization. The role maintains a hands-on focus and provides technical guidance and mentoring, without people-management or organizational leadership responsibilities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field and 6 or more years of Software Engineering or related work experience; or a master’s degree in one of these fields and 5 or more years of such experience; or a PhD in one of these fields and 4 or more years of such experience.
• 3 or more years of work experience with a programming language such as C, C++, Java, or Python.
• Deep expertise in C programming and Linux kernel development.
• Strong hands-on experience with one or more Linux kernel subsystems.
• Strong understanding of computer architecture, including CPU microarchitecture, cache hierarchy and coherency, memory ordering and hierarchy, NUMA and topology concepts, and interrupt architecture.
• Significant hands-on experience analyzing and optimizing system performance and power, including correlating workload behavior with kernel, firmware, and hardware behavior.
• Demonstrated ability to independently debug difficult system-level problems involving hardware, firmware, operating-system software, and applications.
• Extensive experience with Linux debugging and performance-analysis tools such as perf, ftrace, trace-cmd, kernel tracepoints, crash dumps, and JTAG-based debugging.
• Experience with Git, code-review workflows, and development of large-scale production software.
• Ability to work effectively on technically ambiguous problems, evaluate alternative approaches, and develop robust solutions with limited technical direction.
• Ability to communicate complex technical topics clearly and make sound engineering trade-offs across performance, power, scalability, maintainability, and product requirements.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with 8 or more years of relevant systems software experience, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience with Linux kernel CPU scheduling, CPU topology, CPUFreq/DVFS and power management, interrupt and timer subsystems, idle and CPUFreq governor workings, platform enablement, or device drivers.
• Strong knowledge of ARM and RISC-V architecture and SoCs.
• Experience with QEMU, FPGA, emulation, or other pre-silicon development environments.
• Experience with low-level platform technologies such as device tree/ACPI, interrupt controllers, timers, memory controllers, CPU topology, and platform bring-up.
• Contributions to the upstream Linux kernel or other major open-source systems software projects.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize Linux kernel technologies, especially CPU scheduling, CPU topology, CPUFreq/DVFS, and power and performance management.
• Analyze and resolve complex system-level issues spanning workloads, the Linux kernel, firmware, CPU architecture, cache and memory hierarchy, and hardware.
• Develop and optimize scheduler policies, workload placement, frequency management, topology-aware scheduling, and workload-aware performance optimizations.
• Evaluate new processor and SoC capabilities and contribute to Linux kernel architecture, design, and implementation for them.
• Characterize workloads and analyze scheduling behavior, CPU utilization, scalability, latency, cache behavior, power, and performance; identify and implement system-level improvements.
• Develop, debug, and validate kernel technologies across QEMU, FPGA emulation, and production silicon using tools such as ftrace, tracepoints, perf, trace-cmd, crash analysis, and JTAG.
• Collaborate with hardware, firmware, performance, and other systems software teams through architecture discussions, design and code reviews, platform enablement, and commercialization.
• Contribute to the upstream Linux kernel community and open-source projects.
• Provide technical guidance to other engineers and document key architecture, design, and validation decisions.
• Independently investigate and solve complex problems involving Linux scheduling, CPU topology, power and performance management, virtualization, and platform software.
• Develop solutions from analysis and prototyping through implementation, validation, upstream development, and product commercialization.
• Contribute to architecture and design decisions for operating-system support of future CPUs and SoCs.
• Evaluate architectural trade-offs involving performance, power, scalability, complexity, maintainability, and upstream Linux compatibility.
• Identify limitations in existing software architectures and develop solutions that scale across platforms and product generations.
• Work with hardware, firmware, performance, virtualization, systems software engineers, customers, partners, and the open-source community to diagnose and resolve cross-layer and commercialization issues.
• Share technical knowledge and mentor engineers while remaining a hands-on technical contributor.

Benefits

• Competitive annual discretionary bonus program.
• Opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for the annual bonus).
• Competitive benefits package designed to support employees at work, at home, and at play.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior