IT Technical Lead, Principal

About Qualcomm

Qualcomm is seeking a visionary, hands-on leader to play a critical role in shaping the future of our data capabilities as part of a strategic and critical Enterprise Data Transformation (EDT) program. The IT Technical Lead, Principal will drive the building out of a modern enterprise-wide lake house with scalable, reliable, and business-intuitive data architecture, supporting self-service capabilities across Data & Analytics solutions.

This role requires full-time onsite work in San Diego, CA (5 days per week).

Key Responsibilities for the IT Technical Lead, Principal

• Vision and Strategy: Define and lead the vision, strategy, and roadmap for data platforms (data lakes, warehouses, governance, data quality, observability, etc.), aligning with business objectives and technological advancements to enable data platforms as a strategic enabler for AI.
• Performance & Cost Management: Monitor and tune compute resources, implementing strategies like Z-ordering, partitioning, and autoscaling to balance high performance with cost-efficiency.
• Governance & Security: Enforce data governance policies, access controls, and compliance using tools like Unity Catalog or AWS Lake Formation.
• Technical Leadership: Mentor engineering teams, conduct code reviews, and drive engineering excellence through CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Serve as the primary liaison between business units and technical teams to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps.

Preferred Qualifications

• 14+ years of IT-related work experience in Data and Analytics domain with a Bachelor's degree.
• 7+ years of enterprise data modeling experience.
• 3+ years of work experience in a role requiring interaction with senior leadership, leading modernization of Data platforms.
• Strong functional knowledge across Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, Supply Chain, Finance, and other corporate functions.
• Deep hands-on technical understanding in building complex data models for supporting various analytics needs.
• Comfortable in working with cross-functional teams such as Data Engineering, Analytics, SMEs, and Business stakeholders.
• Passion to understand complex existing footprint of data solutions and build out the strategy for migrating to Databricks medallion architecture.
• Accountability and Ownership of the delivery in driving projects to completion.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field. OR 9+ years of IT-related work experience without a Bachelor’s degree.
• 5+ years of work experience with programming (e.g., Java, Python).
• 3+ years of work experience with SQL or NoSQL Databases.
• 3+ years of work experience with Data Structures and algorithms.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• 12+ years of experience in data management, data engineering, or data science roles, with at least 7 years in building enterprise-level data models as part of data modernization and DW migration efforts.
• Strong understanding and hands-on experience with Lakehouse medallion data architecture and governance.
• Proven implementation experience with migrating legacy DW data models to 3-layer medallion architecture.
• Strong passion in exploring GenAI based solutions for documenting the existing DW footprint and building out strategic data models for the Databricks platform.
• Experience with machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics is a plus.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and collaboration skills in a global hybrid delivery model.
• Strong problem-solving skills with a strategic thought process, self-initiative, and proactive soft skills.

Pay Range for IT Technical Lead, Principal

The expected pay range for this role is $176,800.00 - $265,200.00 annually, which is only one component of the total compensation package at Qualcomm. The company also offers a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunities for annual RSU grants, along with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support employee success.

Key skills/competency

• Data Architecture
• Lakehouse
• Data Governance
• Databricks
• Python
• SQL
• Cloud Platforms
• CI/CD
• Terraform
• Data Modeling