Sr Staff Engineer - Verification, CI/CD Infrastructure & Embedded Hardware (AISW)

Job Title

Sr Staff Engineer - Verification, CI/CD Infrastructure & Embedded Hardware (AISW)

Role Summary

Senior individual contributor responsible for designing, scaling, and hardening CI/CD infrastructure and verification systems for Qualcomm's AI software stack. The role focuses on building large-scale automated pipelines, integrating embedded hardware (DSP/NPU) test execution, and delivering reliable, high-signal validation at scale.

Experience Level

Senior — typically requires 10+ years of relevant engineering experience (CI/CD, verification, embedded systems, runtime/toolchain development).

Responsibilities

Hands-on technical ownership of CI/CD and embedded-hardware verification infrastructure with cross-functional influence.

• Architect and scale distributed CI/CD systems to maximize throughput and minimize flakiness.
• Design and implement automated workflows: build, package, deploy, flash, run, collect logs, triage, and dashboarding.
• Develop scheduling and orchestration for thousands of hardware-based regression tests and device-farm automation.
• Integrate embedded targets (DSP/NPU) into automated pipelines; automate flashing, provisioning, power/reset, and bring-up procedures.
• Design hardware-in-loop validation for stability, thermal, long-run correctness, and performance measurement.
• Improve test signal: coverage strategy, failure classification, automated triage, and flakiness elimination.
• Maintain CI pipelines for internal and open-source projects; enforce PR gating, reproducible builds, and artifact management.
• Lead technical deep-dives, provide data-driven guidance to DevOps/firmware/platform teams, and align infrastructure with program milestones.
• Produce clear documentation and drive continuous improvement of reproducible hardware testing workflows.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for immediate impact.

• Must-have: 10+ years in CI/CD engineering, verification, embedded systems, or runtime/toolchain development.
• Must-have: Proven experience designing and scaling CI/CD with tools such as Buildkite, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions.
• Must-have: Deep experience integrating embedded hardware into automated pipelines and maintaining device-farm operations.
• Must-have: Experience with firmware flashing, device provisioning, power/reset automation, and board-farm debugging.
• Must-have: Strong scripting and programming skills (Python, Bash, C/C++).
• Must-have: Strong debugging across runtime, driver, and inference layers; ability to diagnose software vs hardware failures.
• Must-have: Experience maintaining or contributing to open-source verification pipelines.
• Must-have: Ability to influence cross-functional engineering teams and lead technical investigations.
• Nice-to-have: Familiarity with Qualcomm AI stack (QNN, QAIRT, SNPE) and heterogeneous compute validation (DSP/GPU/CPU/NPU).
• Nice-to-have: Experience with silicon bring-up, hardware-in-loop systems, or large-scale device-farm automation.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience). Alternate education pathways listed in the source: Master’s degree in the same fields with reduced experience requirements, or PhD with further reduced experience requirements. The posting explicitly accepts equivalent work experience in lieu of degree.

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.