Principal / Director – Robotics System Architecture Lead

Qualcomm

Actively hiring
Santa Clara, CA · San Diego, CA Posted 14 days ago $242,300–$363,500 / year
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At a glance

AI generated

TL;DR

Qualcomm Robotics is hiring a Principal or Senior Director-level Robotics System Architecture Lead to define and own the end-to-end system architecture for next-generation robotic platforms, shaping technical direction across silicon, firmware, operating systems, middleware, AI, and cloud integration. The role involves defining architectural principles for real-time behavior, performance, safety isolation, determinism, and scalability, leading decisions on perception, localization, navigation, planning, manipulation, and control stacks, and driving the integration of ROS 2/DDS-based middleware with Qualcomm’s AI technologies into a cohesive robotics platform. Ideal candidates have deep robotics systems experience, strong architectural judgment, hands-on expertise with ROS 2, DDS, real-time Linux, MCU-based systems, and AI inference runtimes, and a track record of shipping commercial or industrial robotic products at scale. For the Director level, additional responsibilities include providing technical leadership and mentorship across teams and influencing multi-year platform strategy.

Skills

ROS 2 DDS Linux MCU AI inference runtimes cloud-connected robotics fleet management edge-to-cloud architectures Kubernetes Docker CI/CD AWS GCP Azure PostgreSQL MongoDB Git Jenkins Prometheus Grafana

What you'll do

  • Own end-to-end robotics system architecture spanning hardware and software components.
  • Define architectural principles for real-time behavior, performance, safety isolation, and scalability.
  • Lead architectural decisions across perception, localization, navigation, planning, manipulation, and control stacks.
  • Architect multi-sensor systems including timing/synchronization, calibration, bandwidth, and compute/power trade-offs.
  • Drive integration of ROS 2 / DDS-based middleware and Qualcomm AI technologies into a cohesive platform.
  • Establish system-level strategies for reliability, diagnostics, functional safety patterns, and validation.
  • Guide complex cross-team design efforts and serve as the technical escalation point.

What we're looking for

  • 15+ years of experience in robotics, autonomous systems, or large-scale software systems.
  • Proven track record owning system-level architecture across hardware and software domains.
  • Strong expertise in robotics fundamentals including perception, sensor fusion, planning, and control.
  • Experience with heterogeneous compute platforms and real-time critical systems.
  • Demonstrated ability to drive alignment and influence decisions across cross-functional teams.
  • Hands-on experience with ROS 2, DDS, real-time Linux, MCU-based systems, and AI inference runtimes.

Market check

Salary context

This $242,300–$363,500 range sits above 91% of similar postings on FindRole.

Peer median band

$176,600–$262,400

Median floor and ceiling across peers.

Typical midpoint (25–75%)

$184,925–$249,881

Middle half of comparable postings.

Based on 239 comparable postings.

* 240 is the maximum number of comparable postings sampled.

Employer

About Qualcomm

Qualcomm is a leading American semiconductor and telecommunications company based in San Diego, CA.

Qualcomm currently has 569 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $148,300–$224,400 across 536 roles with salary data.

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