Chip Design Engineer Jobs in San Diego, CA
San Diego runs on wireless silicon. Qualcomm's Snapdragon and modem teams are headquartered here, and that gravity pulls in RF, baseband, and mixed-signal design work that stays concentrated in the city rather than scattered across the coast.
Most chip design roles in San Diego sit in one of a few buckets: RF and wireless IC design, baseband RTL and verification for modem programs, and mixed-signal CMOS for advanced mobile SoCs. If you have taped out analog or RF blocks on a modern node, San Diego is one of the few markets where that experience is the main event rather than a side skill.
Day to day, the work looks like transceiver and PLL design in Cadence Virtuoso and Spectre, baseband datapath RTL that has to come back lint- and CDC-clean before it goes to synthesis, and closing timing on mobile SoC blocks at 5nm and 3nm. Power and area budgets are tight because the parts ship in handsets, so a lot of the job is trading off headroom you don't have. Verification engineers on the modem side live in constrained-random and coverage closure for months at a stretch.
Qualcomm is the obvious employer, with Snapdragon and modem design teams that number in the thousands and hire across RTL, analog, RF, and physical design. Broadcom keeps significant networking and broadband design operations in the city, and a long tail of wireless and IoT chip startups fills out the rest. UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering feeds a steady stream of new design talent into all of them, which is part of why the local RF bench stays deep. You can see the full roster on our page of companies hiring for semiconductor design.
Compensation tracks the specialization. Early-career RF and mixed-signal design engineers in San Diego generally land in the $115K to $155K base range, and staff-level analog or modem engineers push $200K to $290K in total comp once equity and bonus are counted. Our salary guide for semiconductor jobs breaks the numbers down by role and level.
If you are targeting the wireless side specifically, look at Qualcomm RF IC engineer roles, and if you are open to a short move up the coast, there are also RF IC design roles in Irvine, CA. Save a search on semidesignjobs.com and you'll get an email when a San Diego chip design role matching your filters opens.
FAQ
Which semiconductor companies dominate the San Diego chip design job market
Qualcomm is by far the largest, with Snapdragon and modem design teams numbering in the thousands. Broadcom runs significant wireless and broadband design operations in the city. A cluster of wireless and IoT chip startups accounts for most of the remaining roles.
What chip design specializations are most in demand in San Diego
RF and analog IC design driven by Qualcomm and the wireless companies, baseband RTL and verification on the Qualcomm modem team, and physical design for advanced mobile SoCs. Those three areas carry most of the local demand.
Does San Diego have a good semiconductor engineering community
Yes. San Diego has an active IEEE Solid-State Circuits and CAS chapter, a large Qualcomm engineering alumni network, and regular DesignCon satellite events. UC San Diego's proximity keeps industry and academic collaboration close.