Principal / Director – Robotics System Architecture Lead - Santa Clara, California, United States of America
$242,300 - $363,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 15 May 2026 by the employer.
Define end-to-end robotics architecture across heterogeneous compute, ROS 2 / DDS middleware, and real-time sensor pipelines.
About the role
Qualcomm Robotics is seeking a Principal or Director-level Robotics System Architecture Lead to define and own the end-to-end system architecture for robotic platforms. The role oversees technical direction across silicon, firmware, operating systems, middleware, AI, and cloud integration.
What you'll do
- Own end-to-end robotics system architecture spanning hardware, firmware, OS, middleware, AI runtimes, and cloud/fleet integration. - Define architectural principles for real-time behavior, performance, safety isolation, determinism, and scalability across heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU/MCU). - Lead architectural decisions across perception, localization, navigation, planning, manipulation, and control stacks. - Define multi-sensor architecture (cameras, IMU, lidar/radar, depth) including timing/synchronization, calibration, bandwidth, and compute/power trade-offs. - Architect time synchronization and deterministic sensor data paths using hardware timestamping, clock discipline, and PTP/IEEE 1588. - Drive integration of ROS 2 / DDS-based middleware and Qualcomm AI technologies into production-grade robotics platforms while partnering with silicon teams to align software architecture with SoC capabilities.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 8+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience (or Master's degree and 7+ years, or PhD and 6+ years). - Ability to work in the lab, including handling hazardous chemicals such as glue and machinery.
Nice to have
- Master’s degree or PhD in a relevant technical field. - 15 years of experience in robotics, autonomous systems, embedded platforms, or large-scale software systems. - Proven experience owning system-level architecture across hardware and software boundaries. - Strong understanding of robotics fundamentals: perception, sensor fusion, estimation, planning, and control. - Experience working with heterogeneous compute platforms and performance- or real-time-critical systems. - Hands-on experience with ROS 2, DDS, real-time Linux, MCU-based systems, and AI inference runtimes.
Skills: robotics system architecture, real-time behavior, heterogeneous compute, multi-sensor architecture, functional safety
This role has been open 161 days — well above the 52-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
104
|
Median days open
52 d
|
Median salary
$203k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (104 roles · 27 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 23 | 104 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 739 | 6277 · 144 employers |
| Median days open | 52 d | 52 d (same as this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $203k |
Skills observed across this category: robotics system architecture, real-time behavior, heterogeneous compute, multi-sensor architecture, functional safety
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 29 open roles · median 64 d
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 22 open roles · median 52 d
- NVIDIA · 13 open roles · median 78 d
- Intel Corporation · 6 open roles · median 51 d
- Mobileye · 5 open roles · median 31 d
- Renesas Electronics · 4 open roles · median 3 d
How we counted: 104 open Hardware Systems Engineering (SOC Architecture) roles from 27 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 Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.