Hardware Design Engineer - Sr Staff (Austin OR San Diego)
$162,600 - $244,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 30 January 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Design and develop motherboards, add-in cards, and modules for Qualcomm AI System On Chip (SoC) and System In Package (SIP) platforms. The role supports rack-level design and integration across cards, servers, and networking switches for liquid-cooled data centers.
What you'll do
- Lead schematics design, PCB layouts, design reviews, component selections, mechanical and thermal designs, and test plan development. - Co-develop functional specifications for systems, cards, sub-systems, and rack-level architectures. - Support architecture and card designs including accelerator SoCs, memory, I/O, power delivery, electrical/mechanical integration, and PCB definition/design. - Participate in the design, development, bring-up, and debugging of hardware systems, cards, and rack-level configurations. - Collaborate with internal cross-functional teams and ODMs to develop customer-specific hardware requirements, write Statements of Work (SOWs), and drive technical milestones. - Provide technical oversight of manufacturing processes and deliver technical training for ODMs on rack-level system integration.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Hardware Engineering work experience (or Master's degree and 5+ years, or PhD and 4+ years). - Experience in system, card, and rack-level development, including architecture, design, validation, and deployment of enterprise-class hardware platforms. - Hands-on experience in dense, high-layer count PCB designs (8–20 layers) and proficiency with schematic capture and PCB layout tools (Cadence Allegro, Mentor Expedition). - Deep knowledge of PCIe cards, motherboards, daughtercards, and backplane signal and power delivery, including PDUs, VRMs, PMICs, and power budgeting. - Knowledge of high-speed serial I/O (6–10 Gbps), PCIe Gen5/6, LPDDR4x/5x, DDR4/5, and 200/400/800 GbE interfaces. - Experience with lab test and debug equipment including oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, SMBus, and serial debuggers.
Nice to have
- Master's Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field. - 10 years of hardware engineering/systems development experience or related work experience. - 4 years of experience with circuit design (e.g., digital, analog, RF). - 4 years of experience utilizing schematic capture and circuit simulation software. - 4 years of experience with hardware design and measurement instruments such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and debug tools.
Skills: schematics design, PCB layouts, component selections, rack level design, power delivery, electrical/mechanical integration
This role has been open 200 days — well above the 112-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · Serdes Highspeed
|
Open roles in category
92
|
Median days open
112 d
|
Median salary
$200k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (92 roles · 35 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 92 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 735 | 6250 · 144 employers |
| Median days open | 200 d | 112 d (+88 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $200k |
Skills observed across this category: schematics design, PCB layouts, component selections, rack level design, power delivery, electrical/mechanical integration
Who's hiring in this category
- NVIDIA · 14 open roles · median 53 d
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 9 open roles · median 199 d
- AMD · 5 open roles · median 131 d
- Astera Labs · 4 open roles · median 38 d
- Intel Corporation · 4 open roles · median 14 d
- Keysight Technologies · 4 open roles · median 152 d
How we counted: 92 open Hardware Systems Engineering (Serdes Highspeed) roles from 35 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.