CPU Emulation Sr Lead Engineer
QualcommJob Title
CPU Emulation Sr Lead Engineer
Role Summary
Work on the CPU verification team to deliver emulation-based verification and validation solutions for high-performance CPU designs. The role focuses on building and maintaining emulation infrastructure, enabling scalable verification across simulation and emulation platforms, and supporting CPU bring-up, functional verification, and performance analysis.
Experience Level
Senior. The role expects experienced engineers familiar with hardware verification and emulation; preferred background includes multi-year experience with emulation platforms and CPU verification.
Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include developing, maintaining, and using emulation infrastructure to verify CPU designs and support cross-functional teams.
- Design and deliver emulation-based verification solutions in collaboration with CPU RTL, performance, verification, and software teams.
- Architect and develop testbench infrastructure in C/C++ and SystemVerilog to enable CPU emulation across platforms.
- Develop verification methodology to ensure scalable, portable environments across simulation and emulation.
- Debug emulation performance and area issues to optimize resource usage.
- Develop environments to run verification test cases, OS boot, performance benchmarks, and other workloads.
- Create debugging methodology and processes for efficient root cause analysis of functional and performance issues.
- Collect and maintain metrics for the emulation environment to track coverage, performance, and utilization.
- Work with emulation CAD/infrastructure teams to resolve issues and improve productivity of emulation models.
- Execute verification plans, including design bring-up, DV environment bring-up, regression enablement, and test failure debug.
Requirements
Must-have skills and experience for successful performance in this role.
- Proven experience delivering emulation-based verification solutions and working within CPU verification teams.
- Proficiency in C/C++ and SystemVerilog for testbench and emulation infrastructure development.
- Experience developing verification methodologies that are portable across simulation and emulation.
- Debugging skills for emulation performance, area, and test failures; ability to perform root-cause analysis.
- Familiarity with running OS boot, firmware, and performance workloads in verification environments.
- Experience collaborating with CAD/infrastructure teams to resolve emulation tool and platform issues.
Nice-to-have:
- Experience with emulation platforms such as Palladium, Zebu, Veloce, or FPGA-based emulation.
- Experience synthesizing and optimizing synthesizable Verilog components.
- Experience with C/C++ DPI transactors and monitors.
- Scripting skills (Python, Perl, shell) and experience packaging workloads for cloud execution.
- Experience debugging ARM CPU designs, knowledge of ARM ISA and programmer's model.
- Familiarity with Linux boot, firmware, CPU architecture, and microarchitecture concepts.
Education Requirements
Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or a related field with required years of experience: Bachelor + 3+ years, Master + 2+ years, or PhD + 1+ year of relevant hardware engineering or related work experience. (Source lists these degree/experience combinations as the minimum qualifications.)
About the Company
Company: Qualcomm
Headquarters: San Diego, California, United States
Qualcomm is a global leader in semiconductor and telecommunications equipment, specializing in mobile technologies and innovations. Known for its Adreno GPUs, the company provides solutions enabling advancements in mobile gaming, AI, VR/AR, and autonomous driving. Qualcomm's cutting-edge technology and commitment to high-performance, power-efficient designs drive the evolution of mobile graphics and connectivity worldwide.
