Sr. Staff Hardware Design Engineer, SoC/SIP - San Diego, California, United States of America
$162,600 - $244,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 28 July 2026 by the employer.
This role focuses on designing motherboards, add-in cards, and modules for Qualcomm's new AI System On Chip (SoC)/System In Package (SIP).
About the role
This role involves designing and developing motherboards, add-in cards, and modules for Qualcomm's new AI System On Chip (SoC)/System In Package (SIP).
What you'll do
- Lead schematics design, PCB layouts, design reviews, and component selections.
- Co-develop functional specifications for systems, cards, sub-systems, and rack-level architectures.
- Support architecture and card designs, including accelerator SoCs, memory, I/O, and power delivery.
- Participate in the design and development of rack-level inference solutions.
- Resolve architecture and design issues across system, card, and rack levels.
- Assist in the bring-up and debugging of hardware systems, cards, and rack-level configurations.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
- System/card/rack-level development, including architecture, design, validation, and deployment of enterprise-class hardware platforms.
- Proven experience in rack-level system integration, including chassis, backplane, cabling, and thermal management.
- Deep knowledge of PCIe cards, motherboards, daughtercards, and backplane signal and power delivery.
- Expertise in chassis design, airflow optimization, and thermal management.
- Hands-on experience in dense, high-layer count PCB designs (8–20 layers).
- Skilled in PCIe add-in card/module design and debugging in high-performance systems (x86 and ARM).
- Knowledge of high-speed serial I/O (6–10 Gbps), PCIe Gen5/6, LPDDR4x/5x, DDR4/5, 200/400/800 GbE.
- Proficient in schematic capture and PCB layout tools (Cadence Allegro, Mentor Expedition).
- Experience with circuit simulation tools (SPICE), signal/power integrity analysis.
- Skilled in using lab equipment: oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, SMBus, serial debuggers.
Nice to have
- Master's Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.
- 10 years hardware engineering/Systems development experience.
- 4 years of experience with circuit design (e.g., digital, analog, RF).
- 4 years of experience utilizing schematic capture and circuit simulation software.
- 4 years of experience with hardware design and measurement instruments such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, debug tools.
Skills: rack level design, schematics design, PCB layouts, AI infrastructure, PCIe Gen5/6
This role has been open 81 days — well above the 58-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
103
|
Median days open
58 d
|
Median salary
$208k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (103 roles · 28 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 21 | 103 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 705 | 6118 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 47 d | 58 d (−11 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $208k |
Skills observed across this category: rack level design, schematics design, PCB layouts, AI infrastructure, PCIe Gen5/6
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 28 open roles · median 58 d
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 21 open roles · median 46 d
- NVIDIA · 16 open roles · median 77 d
- Intel Corporation · 6 open roles · median 45 d
- Mobileye · 4 open roles · median 25 d
- Apple · 3 open roles · median 17 d
How we counted: 103 open Hardware Systems Engineering (SOC Architecture) roles from 28 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 18 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.