Physical AI Model Optimization Lead - Qualcomm Advanced Robotics Team

Company: Qualcomm
Location: San Diego
Posted on: April 7, 2026

Job Description:

Company: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Job Area: Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Machine Learning Engineering General Summary: Hiring in San Diego and Santa Clara About Qualcomm Robotics Qualcomm’s Advanced Robotics Team is building an AI?first stack and platform for the next generation of general?purpose robots—from AMRs and cobots to emerging humanoids—by pairing heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) with a full Robotics SDK and developer tooling for manipulation, perception, navigation, and fleet workflows. The team leverages Qualcomm’s success in automated driving, advanced end?to?end AI development, and safety architecture to accelerate growth in this emerging market. Role Overview The Physical AI Model Optimization Lead will drive the technical execution of advanced robotic AI model deployment on Qualcomm chipsets. This is a deeply technical, hands?on role focused on quantization, compression, optimization, mixed?precision tuning, and hardware?aware graph transformations using Qualcomm’s internal toolchains. A key responsibility of this role is creating and maintaining a curated library of robotics?focused AI models that are pre?optimized for deployment on Qualcomm chips. These models—spanning perception, control, VLA, and multimodal reasoning—will be packaged, validated, and made available for customers as high?performance, deploy?ready components that accelerate their development cycles. This role provides exposure to industry?leading robotics?centric AI models, including next?generation vision?language?action (VLA) architectures and complex multimodal transformers and reasoning models, with responsibility for taking models from research?grade to highly optimized real?time deployment on heterogeneous compute. Your work will directly impact real robots—and the teams building them. Why Join Us - Shape the core platform that powers intelligent, safe, and scalable robotic operations. - Work with some of the most advanced robotic AI models in the world. - Influence the optimization and deployment pipeline for next?generation robotic intelligence. - Access competitive compensation, deep technical growth, and opportunities to shape the future of on?device AI. Minimum Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 6 years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 5 years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 4 years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. Preferred Qualifications: - MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field; PhD a plus. - 5 years of experience in embedded/on?device AI, model optimization, or performance engineering. - Deep technical expertise in: - Mixed?precision quantization (INT8/FP16/FP8) - QDQ graph?based quantization flows - PTQ and QAT workflows - Model compression techniques (pruning, distillation, low?rank methods) - Strong experience with ONNX and PyTorch or TensorFlow model export and graph manipulation. - Hands?on profiling experience on edge devices, custom SoCs, or heterogeneous compute targets. - Experience with Qualcomm toolchains: AI Hub Workbench, AIMET, QNN, QGenie, or similar. - Background optimizing transformer?based perception, VLMs, and VLA architectures. - Understanding of heterogeneous compute system design and operator scheduling. - Direct experience supporting customers or partners in model deployment and performance tuning. Responsibilities - Execute end?to?end model optimization, including graph rewrites, operator fusion, and hardware?specific transformations. - Apply mixed?precision quantization and QDQ workflows (PTQ/QAT) for high?performance deployment. - Implement compression techniques such as pruning, distillation, and low?rank factorization. - Debug accuracy issues using fine?grained tensor comparisons during quantization and conversion. - Use Qualcomm tools (AI Workbench, AIMET, QNN, QGenie, profilers) to convert, validate, and optimize models. - Map and tune models across heterogeneous compute (DSP/NPU/GPU), including operator placement and kernel selection. - Perform detailed performance profiling and analyze memory, tiling, and scheduling behavior. - Collaborate with internal teams and external customers to integrate, tune, and validate models on Dragonwing hardware. How You’ll Lead - Set the technical bar for optimization of physical AI models. - Own optimization workflows from initial model drop ? compression ? mixed?precision/QDQ quantization ? conversion ? on?device profiling ? final tuned deployment. - Work closely with Qualcomm’s existing tools and teams—AI Hub Workbench, QNN, AIMET, QGenie, compiler, and robotics AI. - Serve as the technical authority on quantization correctness, mixed?precision design, and hardware?aware optimization for physical AI. - Drive improvements in internal tools and processes through hands?on experiments and data?driven reporting. Why Qualcomm - Gain direct access to state?of?the?art robotic AI models and run them on advanced heterogeneous compute. - Work at the intersection of embedded AI, robotics, and high?performance model optimization. - Collaborate with teams building Qualcomm’s inference engines, compilers, and silicon. - Ship improvements that immediately impact real robots across industries. Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail disability-accomodations@qualcomm.com or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries). To all Staffing and Recruiting Agencies: Our Careers Site is only for individuals seeking a job at Qualcomm. Staffing and recruiting agencies and individuals being represented by an agency are not authorized to use this site or to submit profiles, applications or resumes, and any such submissions will be considered unsolicited. Qualcomm does not accept unsolicited resumes or applications from agencies. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Qualcomm employees or any other company location. Qualcomm is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes/applications. EEO Employer: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification. Qualcomm expects its employees to abide by all applicable policies and procedures, including but not limited to security and other requirements regarding protection of Company confidential information and other confidential and/or proprietary information, to the extent those requirements are permissible under applicable law. Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits: $178,400.00 - $267,600.00 The above pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this job code for the location for which it has been posted. Even more importantly, please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Qualcomm. We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for our annual bonus). In addition, our highly competitive benefits package is designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that Qualcomm has to offer – and you can review more details about our US benefits at this link. If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.

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