Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Cork, Ireland

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General Summary:

Qualcomm is seeking a Senior Embedded Software Engineer to join the Core Platform Kernel software team. The Core Platform Kernel team develops and deploys real-time operating system (RTOS) software across multiple subsystems on Qualcomm SoCs, supporting Mobile Handset, XR, Compute, Automotive, Cloud AI, and IoT market segments.

The team is responsible for the deployment and evolution of two RTOS platforms at scale: QuRT OS and Zephyr RTOS.

As part of Qualcomm's continued investment in open-source software, this role will contribute to our Zephyr strategy and help expand Zephyr deployment across Qualcomm products. We are specifically seeking engineers who can develop high-quality embedded software, contribute to upstream Zephyr components, and work effectively with both Qualcomm engineering teams and the broader open-source community.

This role is well suited for engineers who enjoy deep technical work, solving challenging system-level problems, collaborating across software and hardware boundaries, and building software that benefits both Qualcomm products and the broader open-source community.

What You'll Do

As a Senior Engineer, you will:

• Design, implement, debug, and maintain RTOS and low-level system software components.
• Independently investigate complex system-level issues involving performance, stability, power, concurrency, and correctness.
• Develop features from requirements and design through implementation, testing, integration, and deployment.
• Analyze crash dumps, traces, logs, and hardware behavior to perform root-cause analysis.
• Collaborate closely with hardware, systems, validation, and software teams to deliver robust solutions.
• Participate actively in design and code reviews and contribute to engineering standards and technical decisions.
• Contribute to Qualcomm's engagement with the Zephyr open-source community through code contributions, reviews, technical discussions, and upstream collaboration.
• Improve software quality through testing, automation, CI, static analysis, and effective debugging practices.
• Share technical knowledge and help less-experienced engineers develop their skills.

You will be expected to take ownership of significant technical problems, make sound engineering tradeoffs, and deliver high-quality software with a high degree of independence.

QuRT OS

QuRT OS is Qualcomm's real-time operating system optimized for the Hexagon DSP, enabling high-performance, low-power workloads including edge AI, modem processing, audio, sensor processing, and other specialized compute workloads.

In the QuRT OS space, you will:

• Develop enhancements that expose and take advantage of the capabilities of the Hexagon processor architecture.
• Design and implement RTOS features with attention to correctness, performance, power efficiency, and maintainability.
• Own features through requirements, design, implementation, testing, documentation, integration, and support.
• Diagnose complex interactions between the RTOS, processor architecture, hardware, firmware, and application workloads.
• Improve CI, automation, debugging, and test infrastructure to increase development velocity and software quality.

Zephyr RTOS

The Core Platform Kernel team is a major adopter of Zephyr RTOS across Qualcomm SoCs and subsystems. We maintain a scalable Zephyr platform while contributing improvements back to the upstream community.

This role provides an opportunity to become deeply involved in the Zephyr ecosystem while solving challenging embedded systems problems on Qualcomm platforms.

In the Zephyr space, you will:

• Develop and maintain Zephyr subsystems, drivers, platform infrastructure, board support, and architecture components.
• Contribute high-quality changes to the upstream Zephyr project and work through the upstream review process.
• Review contributions from internal and external developers and provide constructive technical feedback.
• Design and implement new Zephyr capabilities with an emphasis on upstream acceptance and long-term maintainability.
• Participate in architecture discussions and technical reviews within Qualcomm and the Zephyr community.
• Collaborate with maintainers and contributors from other companies across the Zephyr ecosystem.
• Enable Zephyr across Qualcomm platforms through board support packages, architecture enablement, driver development, and system software integration.
• Improve testing, CI infrastructure, release readiness, and software quality across upstream and Qualcomm-maintained components.
• Develop expertise in one or more Zephyr technical areas and grow toward technical ownership or maintainership of those components.

How You Work: Tools, Automation & Modern Engineering

Senior Engineers are expected to be highly effective individual contributors who use modern engineering practices to solve problems efficiently and improve the development environment around them.

In practice, this means:

• Applying modern development tools, including AI-assisted tools, when they meaningfully improve productivity or code quality.
• Using automation, scripting, CI systems, debuggers, profilers, tracing tools, static analysis, and simulation environments to accelerate development and diagnosis.
• Knowing when automation can solve a problem efficiently and when deeper hands-on debugging or system analysis is required.
• Identifying recurring engineering problems and improving tools, tests, documentation, or workflows to address them.
• Maintaining high standards for code quality, testing, documentation, and maintainability.

You are not expected to be an AI expert, but you are expected to be tool-fluent, curious, adaptable, and pragmatic.

Where you will be working

Cork has a proud reputation as Ireland's second largest economic engine and is now one of the Top 20 location choices in Europe with 39,000 people being employed by over 170 overseas companies.

There's a growing diversity in the region with people from many nationalities relocating to Cork, relishing the opportunity to work and live in a location that offers an excellent quality of life.

A gateway to Europe, Cork airport provides access to almost 50 international destinations including transatlantic air routes.

Equal Opportunities

We are an Equal Opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any protected classification

What's on Offer

Apart from working in an open, relaxed and collaborative space, you will enjoy:

· Salary, stock and performance related bonus

· Maternity/Paternity Leave

· Employee stock purchase scheme

· Matching pension scheme

· Education Assistance

· Relocation and immigration support (if needed)

· Life, Medical, Income and Travel Insurance

· Subsidised memberships for physical and mental well-being

· Bicycle purchase scheme

· Employee run clubs, including, running, football, chess, badminton + many more

Minimum Qualifications:

OR

Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 1+ year of Software Engineering or related work experience.

OR

PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field.

• 2+ years of academic or work experience with Programming Language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc.

*References to a particular number of years experience are for indicative purposes only. Applications from candidates with equivalent experience will be considered, provided that the candidate can demonstrate an ability to fulfill the principal duties of the role and possesses the required competencies.

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).

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.

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If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.