Embedded Systems Software Engineer
$109,400 - $164,200 USD yearly
Originally posted 28 September 2026 by the employer.
Design, develop, and optimize real-time embedded software for Qualcomm's modem subsystem.
About the role
This role involves designing, developing, and optimizing real-time embedded software for Qualcomm's modem subsystem (MPSS).
What you'll do
- Design, implement, and optimize real-time embedded modem software across protocol layers, drivers, and platform services, meeting strict latency, memory, and power constraints.
- Apply rigorous data-structure and algorithm design to build efficient, scalable firmware components.
- Own end-to-end feature delivery: requirements, architecture, implementation, unit/integration testing, on-target bring-up, and maintenance.
- Pioneer AI-native development practices within the team, integrating AI coding agents into daily workflows and establishing agent rules and prompt patterns.
- Build and maintain AI-assisted tooling for code review, static analysis, test synthesis, and automated crash/log triage over the modem codebase.
- Debug and root-cause complex, multi-layer issues on target hardware, leveraging AI-assisted analysis of logs, traces, and RAM dumps.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
- Strong command of data structures and algorithms with the ability to reason about time/space complexity in memory- and cycle-constrained environments.
- Deep understanding of operating systems concepts: scheduling, concurrency, interrupts, memory management, IPC, real-time constraints, and RTOS internals (e.g., QuRT, ThreadX, FreeRTOS, or similar).
- Proven programming proficiency in modern C/C++ (C++17 and beyond), including performance optimization, cache-aware design, and lock-free/thread-safe patterns.
- Experience with embedded software on DSP and Arm architectures, including familiarity with SIMD/vectorization, DMA, and low-power design.
- Experience with debugging on target hardware: JTAG, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, crash-dump / RAM-dump analysis, and log parsing.
- Familiarity with device drivers, HAL layers, boot flows, and hardware/software co-design.
- Experience using AI coding assistants and agentic tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cline, Claude/GPT-based agents) to generate, refactor, and review embedded C/C++ at scale.
Nice to have
- Experience fine-tuning, prompt-engineering, or building tooling around code models.
- Familiarity with embedding/vector search over source repositories.
Skills: modem software, embedded software, RTOS, DSP, Arm cores, AI-native development
This role has been open 11 days — well below the 59-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
724
|
Median days open
59 d
|
Median salary
$168k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (724 roles · 81 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 122 | 724 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 714 | 6035 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 68 d | 59 d (+9 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $168k |
Skills observed across this category: modem software, embedded software, RTOS, DSP, Arm cores, AI-native development
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 123 open roles · median 64 d
- AMD · 62 open roles · median 31 d
- Micron Technology · 62 open roles · median 89 d
- NVIDIA · 56 open roles · median 60 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 41 open roles · median 31 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 27 open roles · median 79 d
How we counted: 724 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 81 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 10 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 Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.