Principal System Lead – Multimedia Systems (Android Ecosystem
$211,900 - $317,900 USD yearly
Originally posted 9 April 2026 by the employer. Relisted by the employer on 24 September 2026.
About the role
Qualcomm is seeking a system architect for mobile product SoC and chipset development within the Mobile Product Architecture team. The role focuses on architecture analysis and definition across cost, performance, and power trade-offs for mobile SoC and chipset roadmaps.
What you'll do
- Lead product architecture analysis evaluating cost, performance, and power trade-offs using knowledge of semiconductor processes and packaging technologies. - Analyze customer use cases and map them to hardware and software solutions, proposing optimizations for product planning. - Perform trade-offs between cost, IP selection, and product KPIs across CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, AI engines, cache coherency, bus interconnects, MMUs, memory, bandwidth, power grids, and off-chip interfaces. - Work with core systems, hardware design, software, and product management teams to define roadmap intercepts and development plans. - Communicate architectural trade-offs, analyses, risks, and benefits to technical leads, peers, and executive teams using data sets. - Adopt a top-down problem-solving approach from undefined requirements and file patents on technical solutions.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field with 8+ years of engineering experience (or Master's with 7+ years, or PhD with 6+ years). - 8+ years of experience in one or more areas of semiconductor product development. - 5+ years of experience in a technical leadership role.
Nice to have
- Master's Degree or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. - 8–10 years of experience in semiconductor product development across system design, architecture, hardware design, and validation. - 3+ years of experience making trade-offs between product key performance indicators (KPIs) and costs. - 5+ years of experience working within a large, matrixed organization. - 3+ years of experience in a role involving direct interaction with senior leadership.
Skills: product architecture analysis, semiconductor processes, packaging technologies, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, AI engines, cache coherency, bus interconnects
This role has been open 198 days — well above the 79-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
477
|
Median days open
79 d
|
Median salary
$239k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (477 roles · 67 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 80 | 477 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 420 | 3310 · 115 employers |
| Median days open | 84 d | 79 d (+5 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $239k |
Skills observed across this category: product architecture analysis, semiconductor processes, packaging technologies, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, AI engines, cache coherency, bus interconnects
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 80 open roles · median 83 d
- NVIDIA · 56 open roles · median 67 d
- Apple · 37 open roles · median 17 d
- AMD · 36 open roles · median 74 d
- Arm Holdings · 27 open roles · median 122 d
- Micron Technology · 21 open roles · median 101 d
How we counted: 477 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 67 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 Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.