Staff Thermal Limits Engineer

Qualcomm

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Quick summary

Work type
On-site
Location
San Diego, CA
Salary
$148,300–$222,500 / yr
Posted
16 days ago
Freshness
Confirmed live yesterday
Closes
Feb 22, 2027

Market check

Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $189k
This role $185k
$138k most similar roles pay here $232k

This role pays more than 52% of similar roles. Most pay $156,162–$222,000 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $185k versus about $189k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Qualcomm

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

Qualcomm currently has 623 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $148,300–$222,500 across 603 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Staff Thermal Limits Engineer

Staff Thermal Limits Engineer joins the System Performance Team to optimize power, performance, and thermal behavior for Snapdragon Chipsets across server, mobile, automotive, and IoT business units. This role involves researching, simulating, and validating system-level hardware and software architectures while managing sustained and transient thermal and electrical requirements. You will develop next-generation limits management strategies, conduct testing on silicon and system-level platforms, and perform trade-off analyses for CPU, GPU, and AI/ML workloads. Key responsibilities include triaging complex performance issues, mentoring engineers, and developing automation using generative AI tools. The role requires expertise in ARM v8 and v9 specifications, memory hierarchies, and system interconnects. Candidates should possess strong programming skills in Python and C/C++, along with experience in power management stacks, scheduler behavior, and industry-standard performance benchmarks for complex SoCs.

What you'll do

  • Identify and manage thermal and electrical requirements for hardware architectures and protection mechanisms.
  • Develop next-generation thermal and limits management strategies with a focus on server business units.
  • Conduct thermal and limit systems testing and validation on silicon and system-level platforms.
  • Optimize power, performance, and thermal trade-offs in collaboration with cross-functional teams.
  • Create analysis plans for diverse workloads including CPU, GPU, and AI/ML concurrent scenarios.
  • Triage complex performance issues to determine root causes and present findings to stakeholders.
  • Develop automation and integrate generative AI tools to improve team operational efficiency.
  • Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and project management to guide engineers through multiple programs.

What we're looking for

  • Master’s degree in Computer Engineering (preferred).
  • 10+ years of practical post-silicon experience of power and performance analysis of complex SoCs (preferred).
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills (preferred).
  • Experience with industry power and performance benchmarks, system interaction, and dependencies (preferred).
  • Working experience in computer hardware and architecture (preferred).
  • Experience working with server thermal and/or electrical requirements (preferred).
  • Understanding of memory hierarchy, system interconnects, and ARM SoC concepts including SMMU, GIC, Coresight-PMU, and bus protocols (preferred).
  • Knowledge of ARM v8 and v9 specifications, SW power management stacks, and strong programming skills in Python or C/C++ (preferred).

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