CPU Performance & Power Analyst Staff Engineer

Job Title

CPU Performance & Power Analyst Staff Engineer

Role Summary

Work on Snapdragon CPU subsystem performance and power analysis to influence CPU and SoC design decisions across pre-silicon and post-silicon phases. Collaborate with architects, design, and bring-up teams to identify performance bottlenecks and deliver fixes or mitigations.

Experience Level

Senior level. The posting indicates minimum experience varies by degree (typical baselines: Bachelor's +4 years, Master's +3 years, PhD +2 years) and prefers candidates with 9+ years for advanced roles.

Responsibilities

Key responsibilities include analysis, projection, and remediation of CPU/SoC performance issues across pre- and post-silicon stages.

• Analyze Snapdragon CPU subsystem performance and identify bottlenecks across CPU, memory hierarchy, caches, and coherency in multi-core systems.
• Project CPUSS performance for upcoming chips and correlate pre-silicon simulations with post-silicon measurements.
• Lead deep-dive investigations into performance regressions and propose fixes or workarounds at microarchitecture and system level.
• Develop and simulate workloads for pre-silicon performance analysis and generate performance projections for silicon.
• Run workload-driven investigations using industry benchmarks (e.g., lmbench, SPEC, Geekbench) and custom workloads.
• Guide and coordinate execution teams and align performance technology efforts across product engineering groups.
• Work with bring-up, verification, emulation, and post-silicon teams to validate performance and support system bring-up.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills for the role, plus additional desirable skills.

Must-have:

• Strong understanding of microprocessor and SoC microarchitecture, preferably ARM-based designs.
• Experience with CPU and hierarchical memory systems, cache configurations, and coherency issues in multi-core SoCs.
• Proven experience in workload performance characterization, bottleneck analysis, and microarchitecture investigations.
• Hands-on experience with debug environments (e.g., Lauterbach), emulation platforms, and bare-metal bring-up; practical knowledge of Linux boot and system bring-up.
• Experience designing and running benchmark-driven performance studies and correlating results across pre/post-silicon platforms.
• Ability to lead cross-functional performance initiatives and communicate findings to architects and design teams.

Nice-to-have:

• Extensive data-analysis skills to extract trends from large datasets and investigate anomalies.
• Familiarity with Android/Linux internals from a performance perspective.
• Strong programming skills in C/C++, Python or Perl for tooling and automation.
• Experience with industry standard benchmarks and open-source applications at hardware/software level.
• Pre-silicon verification/emulation experience and post-silicon debugging with bus profiling and device-level tools.

Education Requirements

Degree required: Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering/technical field. The posting allows equivalent related work experience in lieu of a degree and gives explicit experience baselines (e.g., Bachelor's +4 years, Master's +3 years, PhD +2 years).

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.