Job Summary As a leading technology innovator, Qualcomm pushes the boundaries of what's possible to enable next-generation experiences and drives digital transformation to help create a smarter, connected future for all. As a Qualcomm Software Engineer, you will design, develop, create, modify, and validate embedded and cloud edge software, applications, and/or specialized utility programs that launch cutting-edge, world class products that meet and exceed customer needs.

Qualcomm Software

Engineers collaborate with systems, hardware, architecture, test engineers, and other teams to design system-level software solutions and obtain information on performance requirements and interfaces.

CPU Software Hardware Co-Design Engineer (ML Systems) Location: Bangalore (or relevant)

Levels: Engineer / Senior Engineer / Staff / Principal Engineer

Role Overview We are building a high-impact team at the intersection of CPU architecture, machine learning workloads, and system-level performance optimization. This role focuses on CPU softwarehardware co-design for next-generation QMX architectures, including workload characterization, simulation, kernel optimization, and driving architectural insights for future CPU designs. The ideal candidate will work across the full stackfrom ML models to low-level kernels to architectural feedbackenabling efficient execution of ML workloads on CPU platforms.

Key Responsibilities

- ML Workload Identification Characterization
- Identify and prioritize critical ML use cases and models for CPU-centric execution (LLMs, vision, speech, recommender systems, etc.)
- Analyze workload characteristics including:
- Compute intensity




- Memory bandwidth and cache behavior
- Parallelism and dataflow patterns

- Simulation Trace Generation

- Generate detailed execution traces for ML workloads using QEMU or equivalent simulators
- Develop tooling to:
- Capture instruction-level execution behavior
- Extract performance counters and bottlenecks

- Enable accurate modeling of workload behavior for architectural exploration

- Bottleneck Analysis Performance Optimization

- Identify system bottlenecks across:
- CPU pipelines
- Memory hierarchy
- Instruction utilization

- Optimize critical hotspots through:

- Kernel-level tuning
- Algorithmic improvements
- Data layout and memory optimizations

- Drive measurable improvements in workload performance

- SoftwareHardware Co-Design

- Collaborate with CPU architecture and design teams to:
- Provide data-driven insights from real workloads
- Identify inefficiencies and propose architectural enhancements

- Influence next-generation CPU features in:

- Compute units
- Vector/SIMD extensions (e.g., QMX)
- Memory subsystems

- ML Kernel Library Development (QMX Focus)

- Design and implement highly optimized ML kernels and libraries for QMX architecture
- Develop kernels for:
- GEMM, convolution, attention

- Enable integration with:

- Open-source ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, ONNX,



XNNPACK, MLAS)

- Apply advanced optimizations:

- SIMD/vectorization
- Cache-aware execution
- Parallel execution strategies

- Benchmarking Performance Engineering

- Optimize CPU-centric ML benchmarks such as:
- Geekbench AI
- Internal benchmarking suites

- Establish performance baselines and track improvements across hardware generations
- Perform competitive analysis and performance positioning

Required Qualifications

- Solid background in:
- Computer Architecture / Systems Programming
- Machine Learning fundamentals

- Proficiency in:

- C/C (mandatory)

- Experience with:

- Performance profiling, benchmarking, and optimization

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with:
- QEMU or equivalent simulators
- ML kernel development (GEMM, convolution, attention)

- Knowledge of:

- CPU architecture (pipelines, caching, SIMD/vector extensions such as NEON, SVE, QMX)

- Familiarity with:

- ML frameworks and inference stacks

- Experience with low-level optimization:

- Intrinsics, assembly, memory and cache tuning

Role: Post Silicon Test Engineer, Industry Type: IT Services & Consulting, Department: Engineering - Software & QA, Employment Type: Full Time, Permanent Role Category: Quality Assurance and Testing Education UG: Any Graduate PG: Any Postgraduate read more

Key Skills Skills highlighted with ‘‘ are preferred keyskills ai architecturecachecachingcharacterizationcloudcompetitive analysiscomputer architecturedesign engineerdesign systemdigital transformationembeddedhardware designjavakernelkernel developmentmachine learningml

📌 Principal Engineer/Senior Staff Engineer- CPU Software & Hardware (Bengaluru)
🏢 Qualcomm
📍 Bengaluru