Senior AI Researcher, On-Device LLM Efficiency

Qualcomm

Actively hiring
San Diego, CA Posted 74 days ago $159,100$238,700 / year

At a glance

AI generated

TL;DR

As a Qualcomm Machine Learning Researcher, you will join the cutting-edge research team at Qualcomm Technologies to develop innovative machine learning methodologies that surpass current state-of-the-art performance in large language model (LLM) inference efficiency algorithms and efficient model architecture design. Your day-to-day responsibilities include researching and implementing creative solutions for practical challenges on devices, evaluating these solutions through simulation and real-world testing, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to enhance mobile, edge, auto, and IoT products. The ideal candidate has a strong background in deep learning and Transformers, along with extensive experience in Python and PyTorch, and preferred qualifications include PhD-level research expertise, LLM efficiency research, on-device AI deployment, and top-tier conference publications.

Skills

Python PyTorch LLM Transformer Deep Learning AI Research NeurIPS ICML ICLR KV Cache Compression Efficient Attention Inference Acceleration On-device AI Deployment Mobile Devices Edge Devices

What you'll do

  • Conduct fundamental machine learning research to develop innovative methodologies.
  • Design efficient model architectures for large language models (LLMs).
  • Implement and evaluate solutions in both simulation and real-device environments.
  • Develop algorithms to enhance LLM inference efficiency on devices.
  • Address practical challenges in deploying AI on mobile or edge devices.

What we're looking for

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
  • 4+ years of AI research experience with strong background in deep learning and Transformers.
  • Proficient programming skills in Python and PyTorch.
  • Experience in LLM reasoning or inference acceleration research.
  • Preferred: PhD in a relevant field and publication record at top-tier conferences.

Market check

Salary context

This $159,100–$238,700 range sits above 33% of similar postings on FindRole.

Peer median band

$184,000$262,400

Median floor and ceiling across peers.

Typical midpoint (25–75%)

$186,200$246,150

Middle half of comparable postings.

Based on 240 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 595 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $148,300–$222,500 across 540 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Qualcomm

More like this

Similar roles

Senior Research Scientist, AI Accelerator Design and VLSI

Nvidia

Santa Clara, CA 111 days ago $192,000$304,750
Python PyTorch C++ SystemVerilog CUDA VLSI EDA ASIC Digital VLSI Circuits Machine Learning Generative AI Computer Architecture Numerical Algorithms AI Model HW/SW Co-Design

Senior Applied AI Engineer

Equifax

Alpharetta, GA 21 days ago
GCP Kubernetes Terraform Java Spring Boot Apache Beam Bigtable BigQuery PubSub GCS Composer Airflow Jenkins Helm CI/CD Python SQL NLP LLM CRMs APIs Event-driven architectures MLOps Docker Prometheus Grafana
Hybrid

Staff Machine Learning Engineer – On-Device AI/ML

Qualcomm

Santa Clara, CA 49 days ago $160,500$240,700
Python C++ Android Linux Windows Git CI/CD Docker Kubernetes AWS GCP Azure Terraform Prometheus PostgreSQL ONNX PyTorch LiteRT ONNXRuntime QualcommAIEngineDirectSDK

AI Researcher - Efficiency Engineer, Hybrid

Cisco

Remote (San Jose, CA) 13 days ago $212,300$275,800
Python LLMs AI/ML Agentic AI GitHub Copilot Cursor Claude Code MLOps Kubernetes Docker CI/CD Prometheus Grafana Design Thinking Terraform AWS PostgreSQL
Remote Hybrid

Senior AI Platform Engineer

Adobe

San Jose 77 days ago $211,800$306,625
TypeScript Python Java Go C++ LLMs Terraform Kubernetes Docker CI/CD Prometheus Grafana PostgreSQL Redis Elasticsearch AWS Azure Google Cloud Platform Git Jenkins GitHub Slack Confluence Jira Swagger OpenAPI GraphQL RESTful APIs Microservices MVP

Senior AI Scientist

Intuit

Mountain View, CA 45 days ago $173,500$234,500
Python scikit-learn R SQL Hive SparkSQL Linux data mining clustering classification regression decision trees neural nets support vector machines anomaly detection recommender systems sequential pattern discovery text mining A/B testing statistical analysis