System Architecture Lead
$179,000 - $268,400 USD yearly
Originally posted 2 April 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Qualcomm's XR Architecture Team is seeking a systems architect to define architectures enabling Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality applications.
What you'll do
- Work with OEM partners to identify, understand, and document use cases and implementations of VR and AR technologies. - Lead hardware, software, and technology teams to translate use case requirements into implementation specifications. - Drive system-level on-target profiling and use case modeling to validate power and performance KPIs and optimize architecture definition. - Define and execute HW-SW partitioning analyses and HW-SW feature analyses to optimize for power and performance. - Collaborate with cross-functional technology teams to establish architecture directions across AR/VR functional areas.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field with 6+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience (or Master's degree with 5+ years, or PhD with 4+ years). - Ability to work in a lab environment using machinery and chemicals.
Nice to have
- Master's degree or PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field. - 10 years of experience in hardware architecture and design. - Experience conducting architectural trade-offs, power/performance analysis, and SW-HW trade-offs. - Knowledge of graphics pipelines, computer vision pipelines, machine learning methods, or camera pipelines. - Experience with system-level performance or power modeling. - Programming experience with C, C++, or Python.
Skills: system architecture, HW-SW partitioning, power and performance KPIs, AR/VR, display technologies, GPUs
This role has been open 200 days — slightly above the 199-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
29
|
Median days open
199 d
|
Median salary
$239k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Qualcomm | All employers we track in this specialty (29 roles · 11 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 8 | 29 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 420 | 3310 · 115 employers |
| Median days open | 200 d | 199 d (+1 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $239k |
Skills observed across this category: system architecture, HW-SW partitioning, power and performance KPIs, AR/VR, display technologies, GPUs
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm (this employer) · 8 open roles · median 199 d
- NVIDIA · 7 open roles · median 195 d
- SiFive · 3 open roles · median 196 d
- AMD · 2 open roles · median 196 d
- Infineon Technologies · 2 open roles · median 193 d
- Intel Corporation · 2 open roles · median 3 d
How we counted: 29 open SoC/Chip Architecture (AI ML Hardware) roles from 11 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 25 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 Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.