Data Engineer, Staff

Qualcomm; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 132,000 - 198,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual discretionary bonuses

RSU grants

Comprehensive benefits program

Job summary

Qualcomm is looking for a Staff Data Engineer based in San Diego, CA. In this role, you will design and maintain modern data pipelines, focusing on building frameworks and automation that support analytics and advanced use cases like AI. The position demands strong experience in data engineering and contributions to architectural decisions.

This full-time role offers a salary range of $132,000.00 to $198,000.00 alongside bonuses and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor's degree.
• 8+ years of experience building and operating data platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with cloud security best practices.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines.
• Implement automation in data workflows.
• Define and monitor SLIs/SLOs for data pipelines.

Skills

Programming in Java or Python

SQL or NoSQL Databases

Data structures and algorithms

Data pipeline design and maintenance

Cloud experience with AWS

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field

Tools

Databricks Lakehouse

AWS

Data observability and monitoring tools

Job description

Company

Qualcomm Incorporated

Job Area

Information Technology Group, Information Technology Group > IT Data Engineer

General Summary

We are seeking a Staff Data Engineer to design, build, and operate a modern, scalable data platform with Databricks Lakehouse as a core foundation.

In this role, you will focus on building reusable data frameworks, shared platform components, and standardized pipelines that enable teams to deliver data products efficiently and consistently. Your work will support analytics, reporting, and downstream advanced use cases (including AI and machine learning), with a strong emphasis on reliability, governance, developer productivity, and intelligent automation.

This is a hands‑on role with meaningful ownership across data engineering, framework development, AI‑driven automation, platform reliability, security, and cost management, while contributing to architectural decisions and data standards.

This role requires full‑time onsite work in San Diego, CA (5 days per week).

This position is not eligible for Qualcomm immigration sponsorship.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of IT‑related work experience with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
  • OR
  • 7+ years of IT‑related work experience without a Bachelor’s degree.
• 3+ years of work experience with programming (e.g., Java, Python).
• 3+ years of work experience with SQL or NoSQL Databases.
• 3+ years of work experience with Data Structures and algorithms.

What You’ll Do

Data Engineering, Frameworks & AI‑Driven Automation

• Design, build, and maintain scalable batch and streaming data pipelines.
• Develop reusable data engineering frameworks, libraries, and templates for ingestion, transformation, validation, and publishing.
• Establish standardized patterns for data modeling, transformations, and pipeline orchestration.
• Implement end‑to‑end data workflows from raw ingestion to curated analytical datasets.
• Leverage AI‑based techniques to automate and optimize data engineering workflows, such as:
  • Intelligent schema inference and evolution.
  • Automated data quality checks and anomaly detection.
  • Pipeline failure detection and self‑healing mechanisms.
• Ensure data quality, reliability, and performance across pipelines and shared frameworks.
• Support downstream consumers such as analytics, reporting, and AI/ML teams.

Reliability, Operations & Intelligent Automation

• Define and monitor SLIs/SLOs for data pipelines, frameworks, and platform availability.
• Participate in incident response, on‑call rotations, and post‑incident reviews.
• Apply AI‑assisted monitoring and alerting to proactively detect performance issues, data drift, and operational anomalies.
• Implement security, compliance, and data governance controls across shared data assets.
• Drive performance tuning and cost optimization, including automated recommendations for resource utilization and workload optimization.

Collaboration & Technical Leadership

• Partner with analytics, application, and platform teams to understand common data needs and platform gaps.
• Drive adoption of standardized data frameworks, automation patterns, and best practices across teams.
• Contribute to data architecture decisions, platform standards, and design guidelines.
• Mentor junior engineers and provide technical guidance, including best practices for automating data workflows.

Qualifications

Data Engineering, Frameworks & System Design

• 8+ years of experience building and operating data platforms or distributed data systems.
• Proven experience designing and building reusable data engineering frameworks, libraries, or platform components.
• Strong experience designing scalable, reliable data pipelines using standardized patterns.
• Solid understanding of data modeling, storage formats, schema evolution, and query performance.
• Experience implementing automation in data pipelines, including rule‑based or AI‑assisted approaches.
• Ability to reason about architectural trade‑offs across scalability, cost, reliability, and security.

Cloud & Data Platform Experience

• Strong hands‑on experience with AWS, including IAM, networking, and multi‑account setups.
• Proven experience with Databricks Lakehouse, including Delta Lake and Unity Catalog.
• Strong proficiency in Python for framework development, data processing, and automation.
• Experience building data platforms that support multiple consumers and automated workflows.

Security & Communication

• Understanding of cloud security best practices and data governance.
• Experience working in regulated or compliance‑driven environments.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to drive adoption of shared frameworks and automation patterns across teams.

Nice‑to‑Have

• Experience building AI‑assisted or intelligent automation for data quality monitoring, pipeline observability, or cost or performance optimization.
• Experience building internal data platforms or enablement frameworks.
• Experience supporting AI/ML teams as platform consumers (without owning models).
• Experience with data observability and monitoring tools.
• Experience with enterprise ingestion tools (e.g., Fivetran, HVR).
• Experience with data lineage or metadata management.
• Familiarity with secret management tools (Vault or similar).
• Experience optimizing Databricks performance and cost.
• Experience working with globally distributed teams.

EEO Statement

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.

Pay Range and Benefits

Salary range: $132,000.00 – $198,000.00. Compensation also includes annual discretionary bonuses, RSU grants, and a comprehensive benefits program.

If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.