CPU-Core RTL Director

Qualcomm; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 228,000 - 343,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is seeking an experienced CPU-Core RTL Manager to lead a team of engineers responsible for high-performance, low-power CPU cores from architectural exploration to silicon bring-up.

You will drive technical tradeoffs across power, performance, area, timing, and schedule while shaping the future direction of Qualcomm's custom CPU roadmap. Strong leadership and collaboration across multiple sites are essential.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of CPU RTL design, microarchitecture, or related semiconductor development.
• 3+ years of experience leading engineering teams or large technical projects.
• Strong understanding of modern high-performance CPU architecture and microarchitecture.
• Proven experience delivering complex RTL designs into production silicon.
• Excellent collaboration across cross-functional teams and disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of CPU RTL engineers responsible for complex CPU subsystems from concept to silicon.
• Translate architectural requirements into scalable microarchitectural implementations.
• Provide direction on RTL, timing closure, power optimization, verification readiness, and silicon debug.
• Own RTL execution and delivery for one or more CPU projects from concept through silicon.
• Coordinate cross-functional activities with Architecture, Verification, PD, Power, CAD, Firmware, and Program Management.

Skills

CPU RTL design

Microarchitecture

Team leadership

Semiconductor development

SystemVerilog

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science

Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science

Tools

SystemVerilog

Job description

Company

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > CPU Engineering

General Summary

Qualcomm is a company of inventors that unlocked 5G and continues to drive the next generation of intelligent computing platforms. Our custom CPU technology powers industry-leading mobile, automotive, XR, AI, and compute products through breakthrough performance and power efficiency.

We are seeking an experienced CPU-Core RTL Manager to lead a team of highly skilled CPU RTL engineers responsible for developing industry-leading high-performance, low-power CPU cores. In this role, you will provide technical and organizational leadership across the entire CPU development lifecycle, from early architectural exploration through RTL implementation, verification, physical design convergence, silicon bring-up, and product delivery.

The ideal candidate combines deep CPU design expertise with strong people leadership skills. You will drive execution across multiple projects, make informed technical tradeoffs involving power, performance, area, timing, and schedule, and help shape the future direction of Qualcomm's custom CPU roadmap.

Roles And Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Lead a team of CPU RTL engineers responsible for the design and delivery of complex CPU subsystems including instruction fetch, decode, branch prediction, scheduling, execution pipelines, memory subsystems, cache hierarchy, power management, and related functionality.
• Partner with CPU architects to translate architectural requirements into scalable and efficient microarchitectural implementations.
• Provide technical direction on microarchitecture, RTL implementation, timing closure, power optimization, verification readiness, and silicon debug.
• Drive high-quality design reviews and ensure design decisions are consistent with long-term CPU roadmap objectives.
• Make critical technical decisions involving power, performance, area, frequency, schedule, and risk tradeoffs.

Project Execution

• Own RTL execution and delivery for one or more CPU projects from concept through silicon.
• Drive milestone planning and execution, including architecture reviews, RTL development, verification readiness, design freezes, tapeout preparation, and post-silicon support.
• Lead bug triage and resolution efforts, ensuring efficient prioritization of functional, performance, power, timing, and methodology issues.
• Evaluate design risks and develop mitigation strategies to maintain project schedules.
• Coordinate cross-functional activities among Architecture, RTL, Verification, Physical Design, Power, DFT, CAD, Emulation, Firmware, and Program Management teams.

PPA and Design Quality

• Drive achievement of aggressive performance, power, area, frequency, and product goals.
• Guide teams through complex design tradeoffs involving pipeline depth, structure sizing, speculation mechanisms, clocking strategies, memory hierarchy, and low-power features.
• Review performance analysis, workload data, silicon characterization results, and physical design feedback to identify optimization opportunities.
• Champion design quality through methodology improvements, automation, code health, design reviews, and best practices.

Organization and People Leadership

• Recruit, retain, mentor, and develop top engineering talent across multiple experience levels.
• Establish technical growth plans and career development opportunities for team members.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, technical excellence, and collaboration.
• Help define team priorities, resource allocation, and organizational strategy to meet evolving business needs.
• Build strong partnerships across global engineering teams spanning multiple sites and disciplines.

Silicon and Product Leadership

• Support silicon bring-up, performance characterization, power analysis, and post-silicon debug activities.
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions for critical product issues.
• Participate in long-term CPU roadmap planning and technology strategy discussions.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 8+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.

OR

Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 7+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.

OR

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 6+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.

Required For This Role

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 12+ years of experience in CPU RTL design, microarchitecture, or related semiconductor development.
• 3+ years of experience leading engineering teams or large technical projects.
• Strong understanding of modern high-performance CPU architecture and microarchitecture.
• Proven experience delivering complex RTL designs into production silicon.

Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline.
• Deep expertise in one or more of the following domains:
• Instruction fetch and branch prediction
• Decode and rename
• Out-of-order scheduling and execution
• Integer and floating-point execution
• Vector/SIMD execution
• Load-store subsystems
• Prefetching and memory hierarchy
• MMU and virtualization
• Cache and coherency systems
• Power management and low-power design
• Expert knowledge of SystemVerilog and modern RTL development methodologies.
• Strong understanding of timing closure, physical design interactions, power optimization, and silicon implementation.
• Experience leading cross-functional execution across Architecture, DV, PD, DFT, CAD, and Product Engineering organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to make high-impact technical and business tradeoffs under schedule pressure.
• Experience driving methodology, automation, AI-assisted design workflows, and engineering productivity improvements.
• Strong communication and leadership skills with the ability to influence across organizations and executive leadership levels.

Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail [e-mail] or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries).

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

$228,400.00 - $342,600.00

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.