$276,900 - $415,300 USD yearly
Originally posted 22 September 2026 by the employer. Relisted by the employer on 5 November 2026.
About the role
As a Director-level System Lead in the Mobile Product System and Architecture organization, you will define and drive mobile system solutions through engagement with OEMs and analysis of emerging use cases. You will collaborate with hardware, software, and foundational IP teams to translate OEM requirements into system architecture across mobile SoCs and software platforms.
What you'll do
- Analyze emerging OEM use cases across multimedia, AI/ML, camera, graphics, gaming, and low-power modes, proposing architectural enhancements for product planning.
- Drive system-level trade-off analysis across power, performance, cost, latency, and thermal constraints for end-to-end user scenarios and deployment requirements.
- Evaluate trade-offs across cost, IP selection, system partitioning, and product KPIs to influence architecture across compute, multimedia pipelines, AI acceleration, memory subsystems, and power management.
- Partner with core systems, hardware design, software, product management, and OEM-facing teams to define product roadmap intercepts and implementation strategies.
- Lead strategic problem solving for ambiguous OEM requirements, addressing architectural gaps across hardware and software boundaries for AI workloads, multimedia processing, and low-power experiences.
- Contribute to the company intellectual property portfolio by inventing and filing patents on system-level solutions.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field with 10+ years of engineering experience (or Master's degree with 9+ years, or PhD with 8+ years).
- 10+ 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 related field.
- 15 years of experience in semiconductor product development (system design, architecture, HW design and validation, or SW development).
- 5 years of experience balancing trade-offs between product KPIs and costs.
- 5 years of experience managing project costs.
- 4 years of experience working in a large matrixed organization.
- 3 years of work experience in a role requiring interaction with executive leadership.
Skills: system architecture, product architecture, hardware and software designs, power efficiency, AI workloads
More semiconductor jobs: Qualcomm jobs · SoC design jobs · San Diego jobs
This role has been open 43 days — well below the 77-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
492
|
Median days open
77 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$230k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (492 roles · 68 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 80 | 492 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 399 | 3472 · 119 employers |
| Median days open | 88 d | 77 d (+11 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $230k |
Skills observed across this category: system architecture, product architecture, hardware and software designs, power efficiency, AI workloads
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 79 open roles · median 90 d
- NVIDIA · 63 open roles · median 78 d
- Apple · 39 open roles · median 16 d
- AMD · 37 open roles · median 71 d
- Arm Holdings · 28 open roles · median 8 d
- Micron Technology · 20 open roles · median 89 d
How we counted: 492 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 68 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 5 Nov 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.