Software Engineer, Core AI Software at Qualcomm
San Diego, CA
$122,800–$184,200from the description
Aug 9, 2026
San Diego, CA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role involves building and optimizing software within Qualcomm's AI Stack SDKs — specifically the QAIRT runtime and Genie generative AI inference extensions — to run large language models and deep neural networks efficiently on Snapdragon hardware. The work spans kernel development, compiler tooling, model efficiency, and performance validation across ML use cases. It suits an engineer with hands-on ML framework and systems programming experience who is comfortable working close to the hardware layer.
Mid level · 2+ years · San Diego, CA · Bachelor's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 270 people in the San Diego, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 200–420
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $166,860 (middle half $131,418–$198,246). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 11, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (5)
The posting lists no hard-gated named technologies in the Minimum Qualifications section — only degree and general years of experience. All specific technologies (ML frameworks, languages, OS-level experience) appear exclusively under Preferred Qualifications, so all are marked preferred.
The minimum qualification accepts a Bachelor's + 2 years, a Master's + 1 year, or a PhD with no experience — the degree requirement is set to Bachelor's as the lowest qualifying path that requires a degree.
The job location is not explicitly stated in the posting; San Diego, CA is inferred as Qualcomm's primary headquarters and the most likely location for this role.
The role is a genuine hybrid between ML software engineering (15-1252) and data science/ML research (15-2051); the primary emphasis on SDK and runtime software development tips it toward 15-1252.
Compensation includes an annual discretionary bonus and RSU grants in addition to the stated base pay range.
Read the full posting
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