SoC Infrastructure/NoC, Power & Performance Validation Lead, Staff (AI Accelerator Platform)

QUALCOMM, Inc.; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 218,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is seeking a skilled engineer for SOC Infrastructure/NoC, Power and Performance Validation in pre-silicon emulation and post-silicon of AI Accelerator and compute platforms.

You will validate, analyze, and scale system-level content across HW/SW boundaries to ensure high-quality silicon validation. The role involves creating thorough validation content, writing tests in C/C++, C++, Python, and assembly, and developing performance dashboards for leadership.

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in EE/CS or related field with 4+ years ASIC validation experience.
• Expertise in interconnects NoC, AXI, AHB and bus stress tests.
• Strong knowledge of CPU, DDR concepts, memory hierarchy.
• Experience with pre/post-silicon validation and emulation.

Responsibilities

• Develop performance validation plans balancing power and performance.
• Analyze SOC bandwidth, QoS, latency, and throughput.

Skills

C

C++

Python

Embedded systems

System validation

Performance analysis

NoC

JTAG debugging

Memory hierarchy

Power management

Education

BSc in Electrical Engineering

MS in Electrical Engineering

PhD in related field

Tools

Perfmon

JTAG

Kernel debuggers

Emulation platforms

C/C++ compilers

Python scripting

Job description

Company

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > ASICS Engineering

General Summary

Qualcomm’s System Validation & Emulation (SVE) team is part of the central SoC validation organization responsible for ensuring end-to-end silicon quality across pre- and post-silicon phases.

This role focuses on content quality and system-level validation enablement, offering deep exposure to Qualcomm SoCs through bare-metal validation content, scalable automation frameworks, and complex system debugs. Engineers in this role work across HW and SW boundaries to develop, validate, and scale system-level test content, ensuring high-quality silicon validation across a wide range of SoC domains.

Excellent Opportunity to work on cutting-edge SoCs across multiple product segments, including:

• Premium mobile and flagship platforms
• Data center
• AI Accelerator platform

Role Overview

The team is currently seeking candidate specifically for SOC Infrastructure/NoC, Power and Performance Validation in pre-silicon emulation and post-silicon of industry-leading ,next generation AI Accelerator and compute platform. An ideal candidate is expected to have an excellent understanding of digital design fundamentals, on-chip interconnects, writing content to validate and analyze SOC bus architecture, performance and power.

Roles & Responsibilities

• Come up with thorough performance validation plans and work closely with team members to ensure Performance-Power trade‑offs are factored in
• SOC Bandwidth, QoS, Latency and Throughput analysis

Minium Requirements

• BS or MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• 7+ years of experience in silicon validation, or platform bring‑up.
• Interconnect architectures - NoCs, AXI, AHB etc. Knowledge of upstream and downstream operations and the ability to write programs to stress their transactions for appropriate coverage
• Solid expertise in various FIFO designs and related performance/functionality aspects
• Memory hierarchy and caches - coherency, consistency (ordering), memory types and attributes, synchronization & semaphores, full‑system concurrency, MTE, MPAM
• Thorough understanding of CPU and DDR concepts, Multimedia, GPU, Peripherals
• System low power modes, Dynamic clock and voltage scaling operations, Interrupt architecture
• Debug architecture - interactions with JTAG based debuggers, state dump scripts
• In depth debugging experience for Complex HW and SW issues
• Experience working with Perfmon architecture -performance counters, telemetry data, and hardware/software co‑optimization.
• Drive correlation between pre-silicon models, emulation platforms, and silicon performance measurements.
• Evaluate AI inference and training workloads to ensure optimal throughput, latency, memory bandwidth, and power‑performance efficiency.
• Contribute to methodology development for performance characterization, benchmarking, and KPI tracking across product generations.
• Create performance dashboards, reports, and technical reviews for leadership and cross‑functional stakeholders.
• Experience in embedded systems/expertise in C, C++, Python and assembly languages. Design and Implementation of drivers and test content
• Logical thinking and problem‑solving ability with focus on Power, Performance and SoC System feature validation
• Fundamental understanding of Static, Leakage and Dynamic power in a semiconductor design
• Familiarity in debug tools including JTAG and kernel debuggers

Preferred Qualification

• Strong understanding of computer architecture, AI/ML accelerators, memory hierarchy, cache coherency, and on-chip interconnects.
• Knowledge of AI/ML workloads, tensor operations, matrix multiplication, transformer models, and large‑scale inference systems.
• Familiarity with System level debug, silicon bring‑up

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Science, Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience.
• Master's degree in Science, Engineering, or related field and 3+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience.
• PhD in Science, Engineering, or related field and 2+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, 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

$145,600.00 - $218,400.00

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.