Silicon Power and Performance Engineer

Job description

**About the Company** Join Qualcomm’s Platform Performance Team to drive ARMv9 server‑class CPU performance across cloud and enterprise platforms. In this role, you will own end‑to‑end benchmarking, regression tracking, system‑level performance analysis, and optimization to deliver industry‑leading results. You will work across hardware, firmware, OS, and software layers to measure, analyze, and improve performance, collaborating closely with kernel, compiler, silicon, and customer teams. **About the Role** In this role, you will own end‑to‑end benchmarking, regression tracking, system‑level performance analysis, and optimization to deliver industry‑leading results. **Responsibilities** - Benchmarking & Characterization - Execute and analyze SPEC CPU, SPECrate, SPECjbb, and representative cloud or microservice workloads - Characterize CPU, cache, memory, NUMA, and I/O behavior on ARMv9 server platforms - Understand what each benchmark measures and how system configuration impacts results - Experience with ARMv9 platforms, UEFI/BIOS, PCIe/CXL, NUMA. - Proficient with perf, VTune, ARM Streamline, TMA. - Linux performance tuning and statistical analysis experience - Performance Analysis & Root Cause Debugging - Identify CPU‑bound, memory‑bound, and system‑level bottlenecks - Use PMU counters, profiling tools, and system traces to debug regressions - Analyze CPI trends, cache misses, memory access patterns, and scheduler effects - Form data‑driven hypotheses and validate them through controlled experiments - Collaborate cross‑functionally to drive fixes and verify improvements - Regression Tracking & Monitoring - Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for server workloads - Automate performance regression detection in CI/CD environments - Track performance changes across software, firmware (UEFI/BIOS), and hardware updates - Optimization - Tune Linux kernel parameters, system configuration, and benchmark settings - Evaluate compiler flags and toolchains for performance impact - Optimize code paths where applicable using ARMv9 features and SVE/SVE2 - Customer & Ecosystem Validation - Validate performance for hyperscalers, Kubernetes, and enterprise workloads - Support OEM/ODM benchmarking, customer evaluations, and field issues - Help explain performance behavior using clear, data‑backed analysis - Automation & Infrastructure - Develop and maintain automated benchmarking frameworks - Build scalable testbeds for repeatable performance testing - Contribute to data collection, visualization, and reporting pipelines **Qualifications** - Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Computer Science, or Electrical Engineering - 4+ years of experience in performance engineering, system software, or related roles **Required Skills** - Strong proficiency in Python and Bash for automation and data analysis - Working knowledge of C/C++ in performance‑critical environments - Familiarity with ARM‑based server platforms and Linux systems - Hands‑on experience running and analyzing CPU Server workloads SPEC CPU, SPECrate, and SPECjbb - Experience with performance tools such as perf, VTune, or equivalent - Exposure to Linux performance tuning and basic statistical analysis **Preferred Skills** - Strong foundation in CPU and system architecture, with an understanding of how modern processors execute workloads and how architectural choices impact performance at scale. - Awareness of microarchitectural behavior, including how core execution, caching, and control mechanisms influence efficiency, latency, and throughput across diverse workloads. - Solid grasp of memory and platform architecture, with the ability to reason about data movement, locality, bandwidth and latency trade‑offs, and system‑level placement effects in complex environments. - Familiarity with ARM‑based platforms, including exposure to contemporary ARM architectures and an appreciation of how architectural extensions affect performance characteristics. - Working knowledge of Linux internals, particularly how operating system behavior influences CPU utilization, memory performance, and I/O efficiency. - Exposure to virtualization technologies, with an understanding of how virtualized environments can impact performance measurement and tuning. - Experience with performance benchmarking and analysis, including designing meaningful experiments, ensuring result consistency, identifying trends over time, and applying sound analytical judgment to interpret data.