$117,800 - $176,600 USD yearly
Optimize mobile SoC power efficiency across firmware, Linux kernel, and Snapdragon platforms.
Originally posted September 23, 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Qualcomm’s Systems Software Power team is seeking a Power Systems Software Engineer to optimize power efficiency for Snapdragon platforms. The role covers the full lifecycle of mobile SoC power consumption, spanning power architecture, modeling, measurement, post-silicon debug, and feature optimization.
What you'll do
- Drive end-to-end power optimization across architecture, hardware, firmware, kernel, Android, and system software teams.
- Define, prototype, and evaluate power features across pre-silicon platforms (emulation, models, trace-based studies) through post-silicon bring-up, validation, and productization.
- Own post-silicon power KPI execution across battery life, gaming, and multimedia use cases, including root-cause debug, power walks, correlation, and optimization.
- Perform software trade-off analysis via rapid prototyping and trace-driven studies to assess scheduler, DVFS, low-power mode, and system-level design choices.
- Identify and deliver power optimization by tuning or developing firmware, Linux kernel, and system algorithms such as scheduler, LPMs, bus/DDR scaling, and SoC power state transitions.
- Contribute to power debug, analysis, and automation infrastructure, including power telemetry and tooling.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field with 2+ years of software engineering experience (or Master's degree with 1+ year of experience, or PhD).
- 2+ years of academic or work experience with programming languages such as C, C++, Java, or Python.
- Proven embedded software development experience designing and implementing systems software.
- Hands-on experience with firmware and Linux kernel development.
- Strong foundation in computer architecture and system design, including memory management, CPU/GPU architectures, and operating system fundamentals such as processes, threads, and scheduling.
- Solid understanding of electrical engineering and digital logic fundamentals.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with low-power design principles and power-saving techniques.
Skills: Linux kernel, power optimization, DVFS, scheduler, firmware
More semiconductor jobs: Qualcomm jobs · Embedded software jobs · San Diego jobs
First seen in our index 51 days ago, well below the 65-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
712
|
Median days since first seen
65 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$220k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (712 roles · 75 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 177 | 712 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 778 | 6737 · 162 employers |
| Median days since first seen | 73 d | 65 d (−8 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | n/a | $220k |
Skills observed across this category: Linux kernel, power optimization, DVFS, scheduler, firmware
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 175 open roles · median 73 d
- NVIDIA · 172 open roles · median 59 d
- AMD · 60 open roles · median 56 d
- Arm Holdings · 33 open roles · median 17 d
- Mobileye · 25 open roles · median 99 d
- Intel Corporation · 16 open roles · median 24 d
How we counted: 712 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 75 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 14 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, and is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Days are counted from when our index first saw each posting, not from the employer's original posting date.