Senior Director, Engineering - San Diego, California, United States of America

Originally posted 21 September 2026 by the employer.

About the role

This role involves setting the forward-looking strategy for rack architecture design and thermal implementation within Qualcomm Technologies.

What you'll do

• Lead the architecture and roadmap for multi-generation rack-scale platforms, balancing performance, TCO, power, thermal, memory, and serviceability.
• Manage executive ODM/OEM and customer relationships, shaping joint roadmaps, design partnerships, and deployment commitments.
• Define the liquid-cooling and high-density power strategy for direct-to-chip, CDUs, 2Phase DLC, immersion, and high-power busbars.
• Ensure rack platforms move from NPI through validation to reliable, high-volume field deployment, instituting operations, RAS, and fleet-health practices.
• Represent Qualcomm externally in industry standards like OCP and with customers, partners, and executives.
• Partner across silicon, software, networking, supply chain, operations, product, and finance to deliver a coherent, buildable, deployable platform strategy.

What you'll need

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Thermal, or HW Engineering.
• 18 years in server/data center hardware and rack-scale systems, including 10 years in engineering leadership.
• 12 years of hands-on industry experience designing server and rack-level hardware, including mechanical/electrical/thermal integration, power distribution, cabling/interconnect, and full rack assembly.
• Deep working knowledge of direct-to-chip / cold-plate liquid cooling, coolant distribution (CDUs, manifolds, blind-mate connectors), rear-door heat exchangers, and immersion.
• Proven ownership of hardware operations, including NPI-to-volume ramp, quality, RAS, serviceability, sustaining engineering, and fleet-health practices for systems running in production.
• Track record taking rack-scale systems from bring-up and integration through validation to at-scale field deployment in real data centers.
• Extensive, close working relationships with ODMs and OEMs across the server/rack ecosystem for joint design, manufacturing readiness, and partner management.
• Demonstrated ownership of a rack/platform roadmap or engineering function delivering products deployed at scale with external manufacturing partners and major customers.

Nice to have

• Deep OCP ecosystem involvement (ORV3 / Open Rack Wide, rack & power working groups) and standards leadership.
• Experience building or scaling a data center rack/platform business or function.
• Experience with AI/accelerator or GPU rack infrastructure at hyperscale, and with sovereign-AI or neocloud deployments.
• Familiarity with high-speed connectivity / SerDes, chiplets, PCIe and Ethernet fabrics, and confidential computing.

Skills: rack architecture design, thermal implementation, liquid-cooled racks, PCIe, Ethernet, SerDes, chiplet