Senior Director, Engineering

Qualcomm; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 252,000 - 378,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is seeking a Senior Director to lead rack-scale architecture and thermal implementation strategies across multiple product lines. You will guide mechanical design, testing, and deployment in data centers while coordinating with silicon, software, and ODM/OEM partners.

You will own multi-generation rack strategy, drive cooling and power leadership, and ensure scalable, serviceable systems from bring-up to field deployment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in an approved engineering field; Master’s degree preferred.
• 18+ years in server hardware and rack-scale systems with leadership experience.
• Strong executive communication and cross-organizational collaboration.
• Experience with ODM/OEM partnerships and customer engagements.

Responsibilities

• Set multi-generation rack strategy: architecture, roadmap, performance, power, cooling, and serviceability.
• Own ODM/OEM and customer relationships: shape joint roadmaps and deployments.
• Drive thermal and power leadership: direct-to-chip cooling, high-density power, and reliability.
• Ensure scalable deployment: bring-up, validation, production readiness, and fleet health.

Job description

Company

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Hardware Engineering

General Summary

About the Team & the Opportunity

Qualcomm Technologies is scaling from silicon leadership into full rack-scale data center systems. Our Qualcomm® solutions deliver purpose-built, rack-level AI inference — paired with our data center CPU roadmap — to multiple global customers solutions

These are complete, serviceable systems: direct to chip liquid-cooled racks & solutions, PCIe for scale-up, Ethernet for scale-out, computing for secure workloads all managed by the Qualcomm AI Infrastructure Management Suite. With our recent announcements into high-speed connectivity, SerDes, and chiplet expertise to the platform. This role is central to helping turn that portfolio into designs our key customers & ODMs can deploy at scale.

Role Summary

We are seeking a Senior Director to help set the forward-looking strategy across rack architecture design and thermal implementation across new areas and be a part of a core team that helps the organization design, test and deploy across multiple product lines and multiple generations as well as internal test racks. You will help lead the mechanical areas tied to rack design and deployment, interface closely with multiple business units and engineering teams as well as ODM / OEM build, test and scale out. This is the Senior Technical Leader who ensures every generation is designed to be built, cooled, deployed, and serviced in real data centers.

Key Responsibilities

• Set multi-generation rack strategy: Help lead, scope, design and set the architecture and roadmap for rack-scale platforms across generations, balancing performance, TCO, power, thermal, memory, and serviceability.
• Own executive ODM/OEM & customer relationships: Be the senior engineering counterpart to ODM/OEM partners and customers — shaping joint roadmaps, design partnerships, and deployment commitments.
• Drive thermal & power leadership: Set the liquid-cooling and high-density power strategy (direct-to-chip, CDUs, 2Phase DLC, immersion, high-power busbars) and keep Qualcomm ahead of where the industry is heading.
• Own deployment at scale: Ensure rack platforms move from NPI through validation to reliable, high-volume field deployment; institute operations, RAS, and fleet-health practices that scale.
• Represent Qualcomm externally: Engage in industry standards (e.g., OCP) and represent the rack platform strategy with customers, partners, and executives.
• Align the enterprise: Partner across silicon, software, networking, supply chain, operations, product, and finance to deliver a coherent, buildable, deployable platform strategy.

Minimum Requirements

• Education: bachelor’s degree in an approved engineering field — Mechanical, Thermal, HW Engineering (or a closely related engineering discipline). Master’s degree is preferred.
• Experience: Around 18+ years in server/data center hardware and rack-scale systems, including 10+ years in engineering leadership — with proven experience leading others.
• Server-space rack design (hands-on): 12+ years of direct, hands-on industry experience designing server and rack-level hardware — mechanical/electrical/thermal integration, power distribution, cabling/interconnect, and full rack assembly — not adjacent or purely managerial exposure.
• Liquid cooling & emerging trends: Deep working knowledge of direct-to-chip / cold-plate liquid cooling, coolant distribution (CDUs, manifolds, blind-mate connectors), rear-door heat exchangers, and immersion — plus a clear point of view on where high-density thermal, power, and rack trends are heading.
• Operations experience: Proven ownership of hardware operations — NPI-to-volume ramp, quality, RAS, serviceability, sustaining engineering, and fleet-health practices for systems running in production.
• Deployment experience: Track record taking rack-scale systems from bring-up and integration through validation to at-scale field deployment in real data centers, anticipating fleet-level issues before they happen.
• ODM/OEM partnership: Extensive, close working relationships with ODMs and OEMs across the server/rack ecosystem — joint design (JDM), manufacturing readiness, BOM and supply alignment, and executive-level partner management.
• Scale & scope: Demonstrated ownership of a rack/platform roadmap or engineering function delivering products deployed at scale with external manufacturing partners and major customers.
• Executive influence: Excellent executive communication, negotiation, and cross-organizational leadership; able to align engineering, operations, and business stakeholders on strategy and commitments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep OCP ecosystem involvement (ORV3 / Open Rack Wide, rack & power working groups) and standards leadership.
• Experience building or scaling a data center rack/platform business or function.
• Experience with AI/accelerator or GPU rack infrastructure at hyperscale, and with sovereign-AI or neocloud deployments.
• Familiarity with high-speed connectivity / SerDes, chiplets, PCIe and Ethernet fabrics, and confidential computing.

What Success Looks Like (First 12 Months)

• A published multi-generation rack platform roadmap aligned with silicon, software, and customer commitments.
• Executive ODM/OEM and key-customer partnerships operating on a predictable design-and-deploy cadence.
• A scaled, high-performing rack systems strategy across cooling technologies, roadmaps and deployment for test and potential scale.
• Development of E2E cooling analysis / fluid mechanics processes & tools from Facilities to POD to Rack to SoC.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 10+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 9+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 8+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.

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

$251,700.00 - $377,500.00

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.