GPU Research Engineer- AI (San Diego / Boxborough )
$161,800 - $242,600 USD yearly
Originally posted 3 December 2025 by the employer.
Design GPU architectures for Windows on Snapdragon, mobile, and data center platforms.
About the role
Qualcomm’s GPU Research Team is seeking GPU architects to design hardware architectures for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and General-Purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing across mobile devices, Windows on Snapdragon (WoS) compute platforms, and data center GPUs.
What you'll do
- Collaborate with GPU architects to design hardware features and enhance GPU architectures for GPGPU, ML, and AI workloads. - Develop architectural solutions across mobile, WoS, and data center GPU platforms. - Work with software teams, hardware design teams, standardization bodies, and partners to implement technical solutions. - Participate in open-source GPGPU, ML, and AI projects. - Advance GPU capabilities for workloads such as large language models (LLMs) and large vision models (LVMs).
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field with 4+ years of relevant experience (or Master's degree with 3+ years, or PhD with 2+ years). - Understanding of GPU architectures, programming models, and application domains. - Proficiency with APIs including OpenCL, CUDA, Vulkan, or Direct3D 12. - Programming proficiency in C/C++.
Nice to have
- Hands-on experience developing, debugging, and optimizing CUDA and OpenCL kernels, as well as GPU compute shaders. - Understanding of quantization techniques and data types for large language models (LLMs) and large vision models (LVMs). - Experience designing GPU hardware features for ML/AI acceleration. - Familiarity with Python. - Contributions to open-source projects such as llama.cpp, vLLM, or similar frameworks.
Skills: GPU architectures, AI, ML, GPGPU, OpenCL, CUDA
This role has been open 200 days — well above the 87-day median for AI/ML Hardware Engineering roles.
AI/ML Hardware Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
506
|
Median days open
87 d
|
Median salary
$236k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (506 roles · 77 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 104 | 506 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 735 | 6250 · 144 employers |
| Median days open | 116 d | 87 d (+29 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $236k |
Skills observed across this category: GPU architectures, AI, ML, GPGPU, OpenCL, CUDA
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 105 open roles · median 116 d
- NVIDIA · 89 open roles · median 58 d
- AMD · 33 open roles · median 107 d
- Micron Technology · 26 open roles · median 59 d
- Mobileye · 20 open roles · median 85 d
- Analog Devices · 18 open roles · median 43 d
How we counted: 506 open AI/ML Hardware Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 77 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 25 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.