Modem Software Engineer

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General Summary:

Qualcomm is a company of inventors that unlocked 5G - ushering in an age of rapid acceleration in connectivity and new possibilities that will transform industries, create jobs, and enrich lives. But this is just the beginning. It takes inventive minds with diverse skills, backgrounds, and cultures to transform 5G's potential into world-changing technologies and products. This is the Invention Age - and this is where you come in.

The MMODE team develops protocol software that enables intelligent system selection and mobility across terrestrial and satellite wireless networks. MMODE software determines how devices discover, select, acquire, and transition between available connectivity options while balancing user experience, network performance, power efficiency, and operator requirements. Engineers work on technologies including 5G NR, LTE, NTN, Multi-SIM, emergency services, and next-generation connectivity solutions, collaborating closely with systems, modem firmware, and test teams to deliver innovative wireless features.

As a Modem Software Engineer, you will design, develop, and optimize real-time embedded software for Qualcomm's modem subsystem (MPSS). You will work close to the metal - writing performant, resource-constrained C/C++ that runs on DSP and Arm cores across cellular protocol layers, device drivers, and RTOS-level components.

Beyond traditional embedded development, this role is explicitly AI-native. You are expected to leverage, build, and improve AI-assisted development workflows - using code-generation agents, LLM-based code review, automated test synthesis, log/crash triage assistants, and retrieval-augmented tooling over our codebase - to dramatically accelerate delivery, quality, and debugging in a highly complex firmware environment.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

• Design, implement, and optimize real-time embedded modem software across protocol layers, drivers, and platform services, meeting strict latency, memory, and power constraints.
• Apply rigorous data-structure and algorithm design to build efficient, scalable firmware components.
• Own end-to-end feature delivery: requirements, architecture, implementation, unit/integration testing, on-target bring-up, and maintenance.
• Pioneer AI-native development practices within the team - integrate AI coding agents into daily workflows, establish agent rules and prompt patterns, and measurably reduce development and debug cycle time.
• Build and maintain AI-assisted tooling for code review, static analysis, test synthesis, and automated crash/log triage over the modem codebase.
• Debug and root-cause complex, multi-layer issues on target hardware, increasingly leveraging AI-assisted analysis of logs, traces, and RAM dumps.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with systems, hardware, test, and integration teams to deliver production-quality modem firmware.
• Contribute to code reviews, design reviews, and continuous improvement of engineering standards - including standards for the responsible and effective use of AI in the SDLC.
• Mentor peers on both embedded fundamentals and AI-native engineering techniques.

Minimum Qualifications:

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 [email protected] 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).

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Pay rangeand Other Compensation & Benefits :

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.