Staff Customer Quality Engineer

Qualcomm; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 135,000 - 202,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in Qualcomm is seeking a Customer Quality Engineer (CQE) / Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) Engineer to resolve product quality issues on RMAs for customers.

You will support RMA evaluations using fault isolation and tools like ATE, X-ray, CSAM, IV curves, bench testing, and data analysis to determine root causes. The role requires leading cross-functional debug efforts with Design, Product Test Engineering, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain, communicating with

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of experience with digital SoC products and system-level debugging.
• Experience analyzing and debugging customer issues involving application processors, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, AI/NPU subsystems, memory, power management, and modem technologies, including LTE, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM, 1x, EVDO, and UMTS.
• Experience in microelectronics, SMT processes, semiconductor fabrication, assembly, and product quality engineering.
• Strong experience with quality methodologies, statistical analysis, root-cause investigation, and structured problem-solving techniques.
• Strong knowledge of device physics and semiconductor fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and lead/support major customer issues to resolution, reduce occurrences of No Fault Found & common mishandling issues such as EOS, ESD, Mechanical damage and SMT Reflow.
• Conduct technical evaluations of customer returned devices at system and device level utilizing tools such as ATE, XRAY, CSAM, IV curve and bench leading to a clear path of root cause.
• Act as the conduit between Qualcomm's customer, Product Core Team and Branch CQE. Introduce, implement, and improve processes between Customer/Branch & Qualcomm.
• Track actions, schedules and owners to maintain targeted RMA analysis cycle time. Initiate internal corrective actions where applicable.
• Drive improvement of internal quality systems with the goal of reducing outgoing product quality DPPM.
• Provide customer prospective to internal stakeholders with the view to driving customer satisfaction metrics higher.

Skills

Digital SoC architecture

SoC debugging

Device physics

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering

Master's degree in Electrical Engineering

PhD in Electrical Engineering

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering

Tools

ATE

X-ray

CSAM

IV curve tracing

JTAG

Oscilloscopes

Logic analyzers

Job description

Company

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Hardware Engineering

General Summary

Job Overview:

• As a CQE (Customer Quality Engineer) / Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) Engineer in Qualcomm's Customer Quality Team, you will be responsible for resolving product quality issues associated with RMAs. You will be assigned products to support RMA evaluation requests submitted by Qualcomm customers. Defect correlation will be performed using system- and device-level evaluation techniques, leveraging a variety of fault-isolation and debug tools, including ATE, X-ray, CSAM, IV curve analysis, bench testing, phone testing, and PFA, among others.
• In this role, you will support debug and data-gathering activities in partnership with other technical disciplines, including RMAE, across Qualcomm. This position offers the opportunity to significantly influence product quality across the organization through direct interactions with customers and collaboration with cross-functional teams, including Design, Product Test Engineering, Marketing, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and lead/support major customer issues to resolution, reduce occurrences of No Fault Found & common mishandling issues such as EOS, ESD, Mechanical damage and SMT Reflow.
• Conduct technical evaluations of customer returned devices at system and device level utilizing tools such as ATE, XRAY, CSAM, IV curve and bench leading to a clear path of root cause.
• Act as the conduit between Qualcomm's customer, Product Core Team and Branch CQE. Introduce, implement, and improve processes (when necessary) between Customer/Branch & Qualcomm.
• Track actions, schedules and owners to maintain targeted RMA analysis cycle time. Initiate internal corrective actions where applicable.
• Drive improvement of internal quality systems with the goal of reducing outgoing product quality DPPM.
• Provide customer prospective (voice of customer) to internal stakeholders with the view to driving customer satisfaction metrics higher.
• Define priority among customer corrective actions to be taken within Qualcomm and guide the implementation within internal teams.
• Support the preparation of weekly, monthly, and quarterly progress reports for problem-solving teams and management.
• Update customers in a timely fashion regarding the status of open quality issues or support requests.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of experience with digital SoC products, semiconductor & Packaging technologies, and system-level debugging.
• Experience analyzing and debugging customer issues involving application processors, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, AI/NPU subsystems, memory, power management, and modem technologies, including LTE, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM, 1x, EVDO, and UMTS.
• Experience in microelectronics, SMT processes, semiconductor fabrication, assembly, and product quality engineering.
• Strong experience with quality methodologies, statistical analysis, root-cause investigation, and structured problem-solving techniques.
• Strong knowledge of device physics and semiconductor fundamentals.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong understanding of Digital SoC architecture, including CPU, GPU, DSP, NPU/AI accelerators, cache hierarchy, memory subsystems, interconnects, power management, and clocking architectures.
• Experience debugging complex SoC-level failures, including boot issues, system hangs, crashes, performance degradation, thermal events, and power-related failures.
• Strong knowledge of silicon debug methodologies, failure analysis, fault isolation, and root cause determination for digital semiconductor products.
• Experience with hardware/software interaction, including firmware, bootloaders, operating systems, device drivers, and application-level debugging.
• Familiarity with power management features such as DVFS, CPR, low-power modes, voltage scaling, and thermal management.
• Experience analyzing customer-reported issues involving CPU, GPU, DSP, AI/NPU, memory (DDR/LPDDR), storage, display, camera, audio, connectivity, and modem subsystems.
• Working knowledge of semiconductor manufacturing, assembly, package reliability, SMT processes, and failure mechanisms such as EOS, ESD, latch-up, and mechanical damage.
• Experience using debug and characterization tools such as ATE, JTAG, scan diagnostics, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, X-ray, CSAM, IV curve tracing, and FA tools.
• Strong understanding of silicon validation, product qualification, yield analysis, reliability testing, and customer-return failure analysis methodologies.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional debug efforts involving Design, Product Test Engineering, Failure Analysis, Manufacturing, Reliability, System Engineering, and Software teams.

Handset/System Knowledge

• Strong understanding of smartphone and embedded system architectures, including application processors, memory subsystems, power delivery networks, display, camera, audio, storage, and connectivity functions.
• Ability to correlate customer-reported failure symptoms with underlying SoC, hardware, software, or manufacturing-related root causes.
• Experience with Android-based systems, system logs, crash analysis, kernel debugging, and performance characterization is highly desirable.

Education Requirements

• Required: B.S. in Electrical Engineering (or equivalent).
• Preferred: M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (or equivalent).

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 3+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 2+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.

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.

Disability Accommodations

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.

Recruitment Policies

To all Staffing and Recruiting Agencies: Our Careers Site is only for individuals seeking a job at Qualcomm. Staffing and recruiting agencies and individuals being represented by an agency are not authorized to use this site or to submit profiles, applications or resumes, and any such submissions will be considered unsolicited. Qualcomm does not accept unsolicited resumes or applications from agencies. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Qualcomm employees or any other company location. Qualcomm is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes/applications.

Compliance and Policies

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

$134,800.00 - $202,200.00

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.