Speech & Audio Research Engineer
$148,300 - $222,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 23 June 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Qualcomm's Multimedia R&D Group is seeking a Speech & Audio Research Engineer to research and build technologies enabling real-time communication and collaboration. The role focuses on fundamental research in speech codecs, signal processing, and embedded neural network models across mobile, XR, Compute, IoT, and Automotive platforms.
What you'll do
- Conduct fundamental research in signal processing and machine learning for speech and audio communication systems. - Develop, optimize, and standardize conversational speech codecs for wireless networks. - Design, implement, optimize, and quantize embedded neural network models for real-time speech and audio applications. - Prototype and implement communication systems at the systems level, including live-network testing. - Create multi-modal interaction technologies combining speech, audio, natural language, video, computer vision, and graphics for virtual and augmented reality environments.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field with 4+ years of Systems Engineering experience, or Master's degree with 3+ years, or PhD with 2+ years of experience. - Experience with digital signal processing techniques, including signal modeling, linear prediction, spectrum analysis and estimation, statistical signal processing, filter design and implementation, adaptive filter theory, and signal enhancement. - Experience with deep learning architectures such as CNN, RNN, LSTM/GRU, and Transformer, alongside toolkits such as TensorFlow or PyTorch. - Programming proficiency in C/C++ and Python within Windows or Unix/Linux development environments. - Willingness to work in a lab environment.
Nice to have
- Master's or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering. - Expertise in speech and audio signal processing domains such as speech coding, speech enhancement, automatic speech recognition (ASR), or text-to-speech (TTS) and neural synthesis. - Experience with deep learned representations, self-supervised learning, and capture, transmission, and rendering of speech and audio. - Experience developing algorithms and systems for mobile voice telephony or voice interfaces. - Embedded software development experience for ARM, DSP, or neural signal processing hardware.
Skills: digital signal processing, machine learning, embedded neural network, real-time communication, communication systems, speech & audio
This role has been open 121 days — well above the 62-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
698
|
Median days open
62 d
|
Median salary
$209k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (698 roles · 73 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 175 | 698 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 734 | 6298 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 83 d | 62 d (+21 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $209k |
Skills observed across this category: digital signal processing, machine learning, embedded neural network, real-time communication, communication systems, speech & audio
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 174 open roles · median 79 d
- NVIDIA · 136 open roles · median 43 d
- AMD · 62 open roles · median 51 d
- Broadcom · 22 open roles · median 58 d
- Mobileye · 21 open roles · median 91 d
- Arm Holdings · 20 open roles · median 119 d
How we counted: 698 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 73 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 22 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.