Sr. Staff Engineer, Thermal - AI Compute

Qualcomm • San Diego, CA

7d • $191,800 - $287,800

About The Position

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s Hardware Systems organization is seeking a Senior Staff Thermal Engineer to address complex thermal challenges and enable performance, efficiency, and reliability across the Qualcomm Dragonfly™ AI300 platform and future AI computing platforms. The position focuses on thermal architecture, simulation, validation, and optimization, supporting AI products from concept through production in collaboration with silicon, packaging, hardware, and system engineering teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field and 6+ years of System/Package Design/Technology Engineering or related work experience; or a master’s degree in one of these fields and 5+ years of related experience; or a Ph.D. in one of these fields and 4+ years of related experience.
• Strong communication, presentation, and cross-functional collaboration skills, including the ability to influence technical decisions across diverse engineering teams.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts, analyses, and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

Nice To Haves

• 8+ years of industry experience in electronics cooling, particularly for high-performance computing, AI, or data center products.
• Experience developing thermal solutions for high-power processors, GPUs, AI accelerators, or advanced compute platforms using air, liquid, or hybrid cooling technologies.
• Deep understanding of thermal management technologies and design elements, including thermal interface materials (TIMs), heat spreaders, heat sinks, vapor chambers, heat pipes, forced-air cooling solutions, and liquid cold plates.
• Experience with advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, including 2.5D and 3D package architectures; exposure to high-power AI accelerator packaging is highly desirable.
• Proficiency in scripting and programming for data analysis, model automation, and tool development using Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or equivalent languages.
• Expertise in CFD analysis and hands-on experience with industry-standard tools such as ANSYS Icepak, Celsius EC, Flotherm, or similar platforms.
• Ability to design, execute, and analyze laboratory thermal validation experiments, including hands-on use of liquid flow meters, temperature and power instrumentation, and data-acquisition equipment.
• Experience correlating simulation models with empirical test results and improving model accuracy throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Familiarity with AI/ML workloads, accelerator architectures, and associated thermal challenges.

Responsibilities

• Lead thermal architecture solutions through simulation and testing in collaboration with stakeholders.
• Perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) thermal simulations from silicon to the data center environment throughout product development.
• Drive direction and strategy discussions, collaborate with technical leads on tradeoffs, and conduct thermal design reviews and presentations.
• Conduct thermal tests to validate and characterize models, and present results to stakeholders.
• Analyze and document simulation and test results.

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