ISP Design Engineer (up to Staff)
QualcommJob Title
ISP Design Engineer (up to Staff)
Role Summary
Design and architect high-performance, low-power Image Signal Processing (ISP) hardware pipelines for mobile, IoT, automotive, and embedded products. Work within the Camera Engineering team to translate imaging and AI algorithm requirements into production-ready ASIC architectures, collaborating with algorithm, RTL, verification, physical design, firmware, and system teams.
Experience Level
Senior-level. The role expects experienced engineers; exact experience expectations depend on candidate qualifications.
Responsibilities
Key responsibilities include:
- Architect, design, and optimize ISP ASIC hardware modules for conventional and AI-based imaging functions.
- Translate image-quality and algorithm requirements into efficient microarchitectures and datapaths balancing throughput, latency, bandwidth, power, and area.
- Collaborate with imaging and AI algorithm teams to define hardware-efficient architectures and implementation trade-offs.
- Develop C/C++ or SystemC models for architecture exploration, functional validation, performance analysis, and RTL/silicon correlation.
- Participate in architecture and RTL design reviews; identify risks and recommend mitigations.
- Work with verification, physical design, firmware, and system teams to meet functional, performance, and PPA targets through the silicon lifecycle.
- Support silicon bring-up, debugging, tuning, and correlation against pre-silicon models and image-quality targets.
- Be available for business travel across APAC and China.
Requirements
Must-have technical skills and experience:
- Solid understanding of ISP fundamentals (noise reduction, HDR, color processing, image enhancement, image-quality evaluation).
- Hands-on ASIC/RTL design and implementation experience; strong knowledge of Verilog/SystemVerilog, microarchitecture, and datapath design.
- Proficiency in C/C++ for modeling, simulation, validation, and performance analysis.
- Understanding of conventional and AI-based imaging algorithms, their dataflow, computational demands, numerical precision, and hardware implementation considerations.
- Knowledge of SoC architecture, memory hierarchy, bandwidth analysis, and low-power design techniques.
- Ability to review architecture and RTL designs, identify technical risks, and evaluate trade-offs across image quality, performance, bandwidth, power, and area.
- Strong problem-solving and communication skills; ability to drive cross-functional technical discussions.
Nice-to-have:
- Hands-on experience in ISP, computational photography, computer vision, or AI imaging system development.
- Experience taking imaging hardware from architecture through RTL implementation, verification, and silicon bring-up.
- Familiarity with camera systems, sensor pipelines, 3A (AWB/AEC/AF), and image-quality tuning.
- Experience with SystemC, Python, FPGA development flows, or AI frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) and model optimization techniques (quantization, PTQ/QAT, fixed-point conversion).
- Product development experience in mobile, edge AI, automotive, surveillance, or camera-centric applications.
Education Requirements
Degree requirements specified by the source: Bachelor's in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field with 2+ years of relevant engineering experience; OR Master's in a related field with 1+ year of relevant experience; OR PhD in a related field. Fields of study listed include Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science.
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.
