Principal AI SoC Runtime Software Architect at Velaura
Santa Clara, CA
$200,000–$500,000
Aug 10, 2026
Santa Clara, CA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Principal-level architect role at an AI SoC startup, responsible for designing and leading development of the end-to-end runtime that coordinates heterogeneous workloads — CPU cores, AI accelerators, vision/multimedia engines, and embedded processors — on a custom chip targeting robotics and edge AI applications. The role spans sensor ingest through inference to result delivery, covering memory/buffer architecture, kernel/driver interfaces, compiler–runtime contracts, and system-wide observability. It is a hands-on technical lead position directing engineers across runtime, kernel, firmware, multimedia, and SDK teams.
Principal level · Full-time
Pay in the description: $200,000–$500,000
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How this req sits in the market our data
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). 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 13, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The compensation range of $200,000–$500,000/year is unusually wide; the posting notes that base pay depends on skills, qualifications, experience, and location, and that the total package also includes performance incentives and equity.
The posting does not state a minimum years-of-experience figure; 'extensive experience' is used qualitatively rather than as a numeric gate.
SOC classification required judgment: this role is primarily about architecting and building production runtime software (15-1252 Software Developers), but its deep embedded-systems and heterogeneous-compute focus could also fit 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other). 15-1252 was chosen because the role explicitly requires hands-on coding and shipping production software.
C and C++ are listed together as a single requirement in the posting ('Strong C/C++ programming skills'); they are emitted as separate skills with each listed as an alternative of the other to reflect that both are expected.
Linux kernel development appears only under Preferred Qualifications.
ONNX Runtime, TensorRT, OpenVINO, TensorFlow Lite delegates, Qualcomm QNN/SNPE, and TVM are all listed together as examples of preferred AI inference runtime experience — they are grouped with ONNX Runtime as the primary and the others as alternatives.
ROS 2, V4L2/media, and GStreamer appear only under Preferred Qualifications alongside robotics/edge AI experience.
Read the full posting
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