Staff Systems SW Engineer – Sensors Software (Santa Clara)
$167,000 - $250,600 USD yearly
Originally posted 1 July 2026 by the employer. Relisted by the employer on 7 August 2026.
About the role
This role involves developing and integrating sensors-based software across the product life cycle from early R&D to commercial deployment. You will work with systems, software, and integration/test engineers in the QCT sensors group across smartphones, automotive, IOT, smartwatches, and consumer electronics devices.
What you'll do
- Implement sensor signal processing and machine learning algorithms across various embedded SOCs. - Code in C and modern C++ standards, and perform unit and system testing using frameworks such as Google Test. - Debug, verify, optimize, and tune C code for MATLAB and Python signal processing and machine learning algorithms. - Architect software frameworks and modules across CPU, embedded MCU, and GPU cores while making tradeoffs between performance, memory, power consumption, and computational complexity. - Build technology demonstrations, interface with customers and sensor vendors, and partner with internal and external engineering teams.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field with 4+ years of systems engineering or related experience (or Master's with 3+ years, or PhD with 2+ years). - Proficiency in C and C++, with the ability to implement MATLAB-coded algorithms in C. - Experience with RTOS and multi-threaded programming environments. - Familiarity with Python and MATLAB, along with scripting in an interpreted language (Python, Perl, Ruby, etc.). - Experience debugging, tuning, and running unit and system testing on embedded systems.
Nice to have
- Multi-threaded programming experience and familiarity with hardware architectures such as CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs. - Hands-on experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch and TensorFlow. - Experience with fixed point implementation and quantization for ML models. - Experience with RTOS and modifying device drivers. - Understanding of linear algebra, probability, and statistics.
Skills: C++, sensor signal processing, machine learning algorithms, embedded SOCs, RTOS
This role has been open 111 days — well above the 61-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
697
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$210k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (697 roles · 73 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 174 | 697 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 728 | 6296 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 79 d | 61 d (+18 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $210k |
Skills observed across this category: C++, sensor signal processing, machine learning algorithms, embedded SOCs, RTOS
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 172 open roles · median 82 d
- NVIDIA · 133 open roles · median 42 d
- AMD · 61 open roles · median 50 d
- Mobileye · 25 open roles · median 76 d
- Broadcom · 23 open roles · median 56 d
- Arm Holdings · 20 open roles · median 118 d
How we counted: 697 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 73 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 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.