Manager, SoC Systems Validation Engineering (SVE)

Technology, Data & Digital · Software & Web Development · Software Engineering · QA & Testing

In short

Qualcomm seeks a senior technical leader to establish and grow SoC Systems Validation Engineering in Tijuana. This role involves setting technical direction, owning delivery commitments, and building a local team for pre-silicon and post-silicon validation, debug, and infrastructure.

Responsibilities

Own the system validation strategy for SoC programs supported from Tijuana.
Set the technical bar for test content, debug methodology, and automation.
Drive hardware and software co-debug across SoC architecture, firmware, drivers, kernel, and hardware interfaces.
Review and approve architecture and design decisions from a validation standpoint.
Apply AI-assisted workflows and automation to triage, failure clustering, and regression analysis.
Commit to and deliver the site's validation milestones: pre-silicon readiness, tape-out support, first-silicon bring-up, characterization, and release gates.
Plan capacity and staffing against the program roadmap and negotiate scope.
Establish and run the site's lab operations for validation.
Report status, risks, and quality metrics to program and engineering leadership.
Recruit, interview, and hire validation, debug, and infrastructure engineers.
Define and run the onboarding and technical ramp for new engineers.
Mentor engineers on silicon debug, low-level software, and system architecture.
Set clear goals and expectations, give direct and regular feedback, and support career growth.
Build the site's engineering culture: documentation, design and code review discipline, post-mortems, and knowledge sharing.
Act as the single technical point of contact for the Tijuana SVE team with cross-site teams.
Work across time zones with distributed counterparts.
Partner with EDA, emulation, and instrumentation vendors.
Represent the site in methodology forums, drive reusable content, and adopt proven flows.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, with 10 or more years of relevant industry experience; or a Master's degree with 8 or more years.
Deep experience in SoC or system validation, silicon bring-up, and system debug, with direct ownership of at least one silicon program from pre-silicon readiness through production release.
Demonstrated technical leadership of a validation or debug team, including mentoring, work assignment, and delivery accountability.
Strong low-level programming skill in C/C++ and Python on Linux, including bare-metal or driver-level work.
Working knowledge of SoC architecture: CPU subsystems, DDR and memory hierarchy, NoC and interconnect, clock and power management, low-power modes, and peripheral interfaces.
Hands-on lab and debug experience with JTAG, trace, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and kernel debuggers.
Professional working proficiency in English and in Spanish.
Legal authorization to work in Mexico and the ability to work on site in Tijuana with lab access.
Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Science, Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience; OR Master's degree and 5+ years; OR PhD and 4+ years.

Desired Qualifications

Master's or PhD in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
Experience standing up a new engineering team or site function, including hiring plans, ramp plans, and cross-site work-split negotiation.
Experience with pre-silicon platforms: RTL simulation, emulation on Palladium or Veloce, and FPGA prototyping platforms such as RUMI.
Power and performance characterization experience: Vmin and Fmax, thermal behavior, bandwidth, latency, QoS and concurrency analysis at the system level.
Familiarity with DFT and manufacturing validation concepts such as MBIST, ATPG, scan-based debug, yield analysis and silicon characterization.
Experience building validation automation and CI/CD pipelines and applying AI or machine learning to triage and regression analysis.
Prior experience working with or within a Mexico-based engineering site, and familiarity with the regional university and talent ecosystem.

Benefits

Work on industry-leading mobile, AI, automotive and computing SoCs from the first RTL drop through production silicon.
Take founding ownership of a validation team at a growing site, with the visibility and latitude that comes with building something rather than inheriting it.
Collaborate with world-class engineers across hardware, software, FPGA, emulation, validation and debug domains.
Solve challenging technical problems that span the entire silicon development lifecycle, with access to advanced development platforms and large-scale engineering infrastructure.

Skills

SoC architecturePythonC/C++LinuxJTAGEmulationFPGARTL simulationCI/CDVerilogSystemVerilogTclPerlShell scriptingEmbedded LinuxDevice driversBare-metal firmwareHardware validationPerformance analysisPower analysisFailure analysisRoot-cause debugPlatform-level debugTrace-based debugPVT analysisMarginality analysisAI-assisted debug automationPower characterizationThermal analysisVmin characterizationFmax characterizationCPU analysisGPU analysisDDR analysisNoC analysisLow-power designPalladiumVeloceRUMIEmulation build generationTiming closureValidation frameworksScalable test contentGitJIRALab equipmentRemote lab accessData analysisReporting

#SoC#Systems Validation#Engineering#ASICS#Tijuana#Leadership#Silicon Lifecycle#Pre-silicon#Post-silicon#Bring-up#Debug#Automation#CI/CD#Team Building