DSP Core Design Engineer, Principal

Job Title

DSP Core Design Engineer, Principal

Role Summary

Principal engineer responsible for microarchitecture and RTL development of high-performance, energy-efficient DSP/CPU cores (Hexagon family) used in mobile, server, IoT, and automotive products. Work spans instruction set, RTOS, software architecture, microarchitecture, power/thermal, and di/dt issues.

Deliver design trade-offs that meet performance, area, timing and low-power targets and coordinate across hardware, software and validation teams.

Experience Level

Senior (Principal). The posting expects senior-level experience; see Education Requirements for degree/years pairings.

Responsibilities

Core technical and delivery responsibilities include:

• Own microarchitecture and RTL design for CPU/DSP cores, including feature definition and implementation.
• Drive low-power refinements and performance/area/timing trade-offs.
• Perform microarchitecture exploration and design/performance analysis.
• Design and optimize processor pipelines, out-of-order logic, load/store unit, caches, and memory hierarchy.
• Address multi-processor and multi-threaded system behavior for 64-bit processors and coherence/ordering issues.
• Collaborate with software, verification, validation, integration and system teams; participate in design reviews.
• Investigate and mitigate power, thermal, and di/dt issues in silicon implementation.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to team technical strategy.

Requirements

Key technical must-haves and preferred skills. Degree details are summarized under Education Requirements below.

• Extensive experience in CPU microarchitecture and RTL development with demonstrable ownership of designs.
• Deep knowledge of processor pipelines, out-of-order execution, load/store unit, caches, cache coherence, memory hierarchy, and ordering.
• Proven experience in ASIC design, verification, validation, or integration for complex processors and SoCs.
• Track record of meeting area, timing and low-power targets in silicon designs.
• Strong communication, collaboration and teamwork skills.
• Nice-to-have: experience with RISC-V or ARM architectures, instruction-set design, RTOS interactions, and power/thermal/di/dt mitigation techniques.

Education Requirements

The posting references degrees in Science/Engineering/Computer Science or related technical fields and also provides degree-based experience alternatives. Items found in the source: a Bachelor's, Master's or PhD in Science, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field; explicit pairings of degree with experience (Bachelor's +8 years; Master's +7 years; PhD +6 years); an explicit mention of a Master's degree with 10+ years of CPU architecture experience; and an alternative note of 2+ years of high-performance microprocessor design in another section. Equivalent practical experience is accepted per the degree-based alternatives.

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.