CPU Architecture Performance Engineer (RISC V) - Santa Clara, California, United States of America
$167,100 - $250,700 USD yearly
Originally posted 2 June 2026 by the employer.
About the role
As a CPU Architecture Performance Engineer, you will contribute ideas for advanced CPU performance features, explore them in detail, model them, and work with the design team in productizing them.
What you'll do
- Analyze workloads to identify performance bottlenecks and opportunities. - Perform self-guided performance simulation studies of design alternatives. - Write and maintain features and sections of the CPU architectural performance model. - Collaborate with CPU Performance Architecture and RTL team members to identify opportunities for product improvement. - Work with RTL and design team to assess implementation cost for new features. - Collaborate with the performance team to maintain and improve the simulation environment for increased productivity.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with 4+ years of hardware, software, electrical, systems engineering, or related work experience (or Master's degree with 3+ years, or PhD with 2+ years). - Proficiency in one or more areas of CPU architecture: fetch, decode, branch prediction, renaming, execute units, SIMD, load/store, MMU, caches, or retire.
Nice to have
- MS degree in Computer Architecture with 2 years of practical experience. - Strong CPU architecture knowledge and micro-architecture knowledge. - Experience working in a performance modeling environment. - Proficiency in C, C++, and scripting languages such as Perl or Python. - Knowledge and experience with common performance benchmarks and workloads. - Knowledge of OS internals and compiler technology.
Skills: CPU architecture, micro-architecture, performance modeling, workload analysis, RTL team
This role has been open 143 days — well above the 78-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
473
|
Median days open
78 d
|
Median salary
$239k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (473 roles · 67 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 80 | 473 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 423 | 3322 · 115 employers |
| Median days open | 82 d | 78 d (+4 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $239k |
Skills observed across this category: CPU architecture, micro-architecture, performance modeling, workload analysis, RTL team
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 80 open roles · median 82 d
- NVIDIA · 52 open roles · median 69 d
- Apple · 37 open roles · median 16 d
- AMD · 36 open roles · median 73 d
- Arm Holdings · 27 open roles · median 121 d
- Micron Technology · 21 open roles · median 100 d
How we counted: 473 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 67 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 24 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.