Demo

XR Perception Performance & Optimization Engineer, Sr

Qualcomm Technologies
San Diego, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 4/15/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 5/16/2026
Company:
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Job Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Multimedia Systems

General Summary:

Responsible for in-depth analysis of XR and mobile chipset architectures for concurrent Perception workloads and enabling implementation of optimal use of hardware and software features. We seek a passionate engineer with deep software and system design experience to develop an understanding of chip-to-chip HW/SW enhancements impacting perception execution, analyzing system bottlenecks across key BSP components, and proposing algorithm and system-level optimizations for both single and concurrent perception workloads. Our solutions leverage dedicated hardware, multi-core processors, DSP, and GPU cores to provide Head Tracking, Hand Tracking, 3D Scene Understanding, Object Detection and Tracking, Depth for building XR experiences across a portfolio of solutions.

Key responsibilities include (but are not limited to):
  • Understand and analyze chip-to-chip differences (e.g., on-chip compute/AI accelerators, DSP/HTP variants, memory subsystem characteristics, etc.) that impact perception performance, power, latency, and concurrency behavior.
  • Profile perception algorithms in both singular and concurrent execution scenarios; identify bottlenecks, resource contention, scheduling inefficiencies, and memory bandwidth constraints.
  • Collaborate with Perception teams and drive perception algorithm optimizations per chip, aligned with upcoming hardware and software improvements.
  • Propose and maintain concurrency priorities and resource allocation/reservation strategies across perception algorithms to meet product latency and throughput goals.
  • Understand connectivity options (e.g., device-to-device / distributed compute scenarios) and analyze how connectivity choices affect distributed perception workload partitioning, latency, and robustness.
  • Understand and debug BSP software components that impact perception workloads, including fastrpc, qurt, QNN, QAIRT (and related runtime/IPC/execution paths).

Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 2 years of Systems Engineering or related work experience.
OR
Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 1 year of Systems Engineering or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field.

*Works in the lab, can use hazardous chemicals (e.g., glue, machinery).

Skills / Experience Required
  • Experience in performance profiling, debugging, and optimization of real-time or latency-sensitive workloads (preferably perception / ML / CV pipelines).
  • Strong understanding of system-level execution on embedded platforms, including compute accelerators and runtime stacks and their performance tradeoffs across chip variants.
  • Practical experience analyzing BSP/runtime interactions that affect compute workloads (e.g., IPC overhead, scheduling behavior, memory/DDR effects).
  • Strong programming and debugging skills in C/C and Python (or equivalent).
  • Experience with OS principles and HW/SW interactions
  • Ability to coordinate across multiple teams, track technical dependencies, and communicate risks/impact clearly to technical leads and stakeholders.

Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries).

To all Staffing and Recruiting Agencies: Our Careers Site is only for individuals seeking a job at Qualcomm. Staffing and recruiting agencies and individuals being represented by an agency are not authorized to use this site or to submit profiles, applications or resumes, and any such submissions will be considered unsolicited. Qualcomm does not accept unsolicited resumes or applications from agencies. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Qualcomm employees or any other company location. Qualcomm is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes/applications.

EEO Employer: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification.

Qualcomm expects its employees to abide by all applicable policies and procedures, including but not limited to security and other requirements regarding protection of Company confidential information and other confidential and/or proprietary information, to the extent those requirements are permissible under applicable law.

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits:
$122,500.00 - $183,700.00

The above pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this job code for the location for which it has been posted. Even more importantly, please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Qualcomm. We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for our annual bonus). In addition, our highly competitive benefits package is designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that Qualcomm has to offer - and you can review more details about our US benefits at this link.

If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.

Salary : $122,500 - $183,700

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