#System Software Engineer - Power
$99,500 - $149,300 USD yearly
Originally posted 22 September 2026 by the employer.
Snapdragon platforms
About the role
Qualcomm's Systems Software Power team is seeking an engineer to address power challenges and optimize power efficiency for Snapdragon platforms. The role spans system-level hardware and software power architecture, modeling, measurement, post-silicon debug, and feature optimization across mobile SoC lifecycles.
What you'll do
- Drive power optimization across architecture, hardware, firmware, kernel, Android, and system software teams, working with power architectures, control loops, and low-power techniques. - Define, prototype, and evaluate power features on pre-silicon platforms (emulation, models, trace-based studies) through post-silicon bring-up, validation, and productization. - Own post-silicon power KPI execution for battery life, game, and multimedia use-cases, including root-cause debug, power walks, correlation, and optimization across HW/SW boundaries. - Perform software trade-off analysis using rapid prototyping, experiments, 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 including scheduler, LPMs, bus/DDR scaling, and SoC power state transitions. - Contribute to power debug, analysis, and automation infrastructure, including power telemetry, tooling, and workflows.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field. - Embedded software development experience with the ability to design and implement systems software. - Hands-on experience with firmware and Linux kernel development. - Foundation in computer architecture and system design, including memory management, memory hierarchies, CPU/GPU architectures, and operating system fundamentals (processes, threads, scheduling). - Understanding of electrical engineering and digital logic fundamentals.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with low-power design principles and power-saving techniques.
Skills: power optimization, firmware, Linux kernel, system software, low-power techniques
This role has been open 28 days — well below 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: power optimization, firmware, Linux kernel, system software, low-power techniques
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.