Staff AI Research Engineer

Staff AI Research Engineer

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is a leading technology innovator pushing the boundaries of what's possible to enable next-generation experiences and drive digital transformation. Our team of engineers and computer scientists focuses on high-performance embedded and edge computing, advanced numerical/scientific computing, state-of-the-art optimizations, LLM and vision-based model accelerations, on-device performance optimizations, and quantization techniques, serving both internal and external clients.

About the Role

We are seeking talented Research Engineers to join our Artificial Intelligence R&D team. In this role, you will engage in fundamental research to create innovative machine learning methodologies and achieve beyond state-of-the-art performance. Working within a small, expert technical team, you will receive close guidance and mentorship from experienced researchers, offering an unparalleled learning experience. You will have opportunities to publish research papers and attend client meetings and academic conferences. Your work will contribute to Qualcomm's mission of making AI smarter, improving autonomous driving, accelerating network data speeds, and enhancing extended reality.

Key Project Areas Include:

• Cutting-edge compiler optimizations for new Qualcomm AI chips.
• New approaches and applications of nonconvex optimization.
• Developing new algorithmic implementations for Qualcomm hardware, grounded in mathematical and linear algebra theory, improving standard approaches.
• Innovating in algorithm, compiler, and hardware to accelerate inference and learning.
• Creating drop-in replacements for traditional attention-based transformer architectures.
• State-of-the-art R&D in LLM inference efficiency, efficient model architecture design, and LLM training.
• Developing creative solutions with consideration for practical on-device challenges.
• Implementing and evaluating solutions in simulation and on-device environments for GPUs, Qualcomm NPUs, and heterogeneous computing platforms for image recognition, autonomous driving, and general vision-based applications.

Desired Skills and Background:

• Strong intellectual and cognitive abilities, motivation, a history of achievement, and the ability to synthesize knowledge.
• Solid mathematics foundation (theory and applied), numerical computing background, programming, and engineering skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• A firm mathematics background and strong knowledge of advanced algorithms.
• A passion for Computer Science research and application.
• Genuine interest in Qualcomm's 5G, AI, and distributed intelligence projects.
• Flexibility to work across diverse research topics.

Experience Requirements:

• Research experience, including publication history (AI R&D preferred).
• Background and understanding of the mathematical foundations of deep learning.
• Strong programming/engineering skills (experience with version control, Github, etc.).

Special Considerations (One or More):

• PhD in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• Experience in LLM efficiency research (e.g., efficient attention, inference acceleration, KV cache compression).
• Deep experience with PyTorch; strong understanding of Python and packages.
• Experience in LLM reasoning or inference acceleration research.
• Experience with vision-based AI problems.
• Experience in on-device AI deployment on mobile or edge devices.
• Publication history at top-tier AI/ML conferences/journals (NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ICLR) or scientific computing journals/conferences (IEEE, ACM, SIAM).

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 4+ years of relevant work experience (Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related).
• OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 3+ years of relevant work experience.
• OR PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2+ years of relevant work experience.

Key skills/competency

• Staff AI Research Engineer
• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• LLM
• Computer Vision
• Algorithm Development
• Optimization
• Embedded Systems
• Edge Computing
• PyTorch