Principal Software Engineer, AI Software Automotive Lead
$248,000 - $372,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 8 September 2026 by the employer.
Drive advanced AI software technologies for Qualcomm Automotive platforms.
About the role
As a Principal Software Engineer, AI Software Automotive Lead, you will drive the design, development, and deployment of advanced AI software technologies powering automotive platforms. This role focuses on digital cockpit, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), ADAS, autonomous driving, computer vision, voice AI, and generative AI applications.
What you'll do
- Serve as the primary AI Software technical lead interfacing with the Automotive Business Unit, automotive OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, and strategic customers.
- Represent Qualcomm in customer discussions, technical deep dives, architecture reviews, and issue resolution related to AI software technologies and automotive deployments.
- Lead or coordinate the design, development, integration, and delivery of AI software features for Qualcomm Automotive platforms and products.
- Translate customer requirements and market needs into technical requirements, architecture proposals, feature roadmaps, and engineering execution plans.
- Contribute to enhancements across the Qualcomm AI Stack, including model preparation, optimization, runtime, inference, tooling, and developer workflows to support automotive use cases.
- Provide technical leadership for deployment of advanced AI workloads on Automotive platform environments.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 8+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.
- Strong software architecture and design skills, including distributed systems, embedded software, performance optimization, debugging, testing, and software lifecycle management.
- Demonstrated experience leading large technical initiatives spanning multiple teams and organizations.
- Experience interfacing directly with customers and translating customer requirements into engineering deliverables.
- Strong understanding of embedded and systems software development environments.
- Experience in automotive software platforms, including QNX, Android Automotive, Linux, or AUTOSAR-based environments.
Nice to have
- 15 years of industry experience in software engineering, embedded systems, AI/ML software, or automotive software development.
- Expert-level proficiency in C/C++ software development.
- Experience delivering software for automotive production programs with OEMs or Tier-1 suppliers.
- Familiarity with automotive safety and quality standards, including ISO 26262, ASPICE, and ISO/SAE 21434.
- Experience with AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, ONNX, JAX, or equivalent.
- Experience with deployment and optimization of CNNs, Transformers, vision-language models, Large Language Models (LLMs), and multimodal models.
- Experience with edge AI inference acceleration and heterogeneous compute architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, DSPs, and AI accelerators.
- Experience with Qualcomm AI technologies, including QAIRT, QNN, SNPE, Genie, and related AI software components.
- Experience debugging complex issues spanning application software, middleware, operating systems, drivers, compilers, and hardware platforms.
- Experience with model optimization techniques, including quantization, compression, pruning, compilation, and runtime optimization.
- Experience leading globally distributed engineering teams and cross-functional programs.
- Experience with Agile software development methodologies and Git-based source control management.
- Software development experience in Python.
- AI-native and agentic software development proficiency.
Skills: AI software stack, automotive programs, AI technologies, model preparation, optimization, runtime, inference, ISO 26262
This role has been open 36 days — well below the 55-day median for Infrastructure/Platform Software roles.
Infrastructure/Platform Software · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
98
|
Median days open
55 d
|
Median salary
$220k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (98 roles · 29 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 21 | 98 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 715 | 6136 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 54 d | 55 d (−1 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $220k |
Skills observed across this category: AI software stack, automotive programs, AI technologies, model preparation, optimization, runtime
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 21 open roles · median 54 d
- NVIDIA · 19 open roles · median 52 d
- Intel Corporation · 8 open roles · median 22 d
- AMD · 7 open roles · median 44 d
- Micron Technology · 6 open roles · median 38 d
- Graphcore · 4 open roles · median 116 d
How we counted: 98 open Infrastructure/Platform Software (AI ML Hardware) roles from 29 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 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.