Staff Radio Frequency Hardware Engineer

Qualcomm; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 148,000 - 223,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is seeking a Staff RF Hardware Engineer to lead RF system and hardware architecture definitions for next‑gen wireless platforms.

You will drive architecture decisions across RF hardware, RFIC, antennas, and algorithms, ensuring optimal tradeoffs and performance targets. As a technical leader, you will coordinate cross‑functional teams, supervise design reviews, and guide validation from concept to prototype.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field with 8+ years of experience.
• PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field with 5+ years of experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field with 4+ years of experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead RF system architecture for advanced wireless platforms.
• Drive partitioning and tradeoff analysis across RF hardware, RFIC, antenna, modem, algorithms, and software.
• Establish RF performance requirements and translate objectives into hardware architectures.
• Lead architecture evaluations for emerging technologies and influence product roadmaps.

Education

Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering

PhD in Electrical Engineering

Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering

Job description

Company:

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area:

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Cellular Technologies

General Summary:

The Staff RF Hardware Engineer serves as a technical leader responsible for defining RF system and hardware architecture, technology strategy, and execution across advanced wireless platforms. The role requires expertise spanning RF hardware, RF system design, wireless communications, signal processing, antenna systems, and cross-domain integration.

This position leads the development of complex RF solutions from concept through full prototype, drives critical architectural decisions, and resolves highly challenging system-level issues involving RF, antenna, modem, software, algorithm, and hardware interactions.

The Staff RF Hardware Engineer works with multidisciplinary teams across engineering organizations and serves as a technical coordinator and subject matter expert, helping shape future wireless technologies including 5G Advanced and 6G.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field and 8+ years of relevant industry experience
• Ph.D. Degree in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related discipline and 5+ years of industry or post-doctoral experience

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Define and lead RF system architecture for advanced wireless platforms and next-generation products.
• Drive partitioning and tradeoff analysis across RF hardware, RFIC, antenna, modem, algorithms, and software domains.
• Establish RF performance requirements and translate system objectives into optimized hardware architectures.
• Lead architecture evaluations for emerging technologies and influence product roadmaps.

Technical Leadership

• Drive design reviews, technical risk assessments, and architecture decisions.
• Provide technical direction during product definition, development, integration, verification, optimization, and commercialization.
• Influence engineering best practices, methodologies, and design processes.

RF Hardware Design and Integration

• Lead design, integration, optimization, and validation of complex RF subsystems including:
  • Power amplifiers (PA)
  • Low-noise amplifiers (LNA)
  • RF front-end modules (FEM)
  • Filters and duplexers
  • Phased arrays
  • Mixers and synthesizers
• Drive cross-functional optimization involving:
  • Performance
  • Cost
  • Power
  • Thermal management
  • Reliability

System Analysis and Modeling

• Develop and validate advanced RF system models and simulation environments.
• Analyze nonlinear system behavior and cascaded impairments.
• Drive system tradeoff studies involving:
  • EVM
  • ACLR
  • Spectral efficiency
• Lead waveform-to-hardware co-optimization efforts.

Validation and Characterization

• Lead RF bring-up, debugging, characterization, and system validation activities.
• Develop advanced methodologies for performance verification and root-cause analysis.
• Drive correlation between simulation, prototype, and production hardware.

Innovation and Technology Development

• Identify and develop new RF technologies and system concepts.
• Contribute to patent generation and intellectual property strategy.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and competitive solutions.
• Support new research initiatives and proof-of-concept demonstrations.

Standards and Industry Engagement

• Contribute to wireless standards development and technical proposals.
• Support industry collaborations, customer engagements, technical publications, and conference presentations.
• Influence future wireless system requirements and architectures.

Minimum Qualifications

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

$148,300.00 - $222,500.00

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.