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Hardware Accelerator Research Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Senior AI Performance Architect

Raleigh, NC · On-site

$162K/yr

... research and determine how this will affect both SW and HW design * Work with customers to determine hardware requirements for AI training systems * Analysis of current accelerator and GPU ...

High Level RF Engineer

Batavia, IL · On-site

$88K - $116K/yr

Design, develop, implement and maintain hardware for current and future high-power RF systems, from ... Fermilab is America's premier laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research, funded by ...

We collaborate across research, software, and external hardware partners to design and deploy next ... Engage deeply with silicon vendors (e.g NVIDIA & AMD) on GPU and accelerator architecture tradeoffs.

Design, develop, implement and maintain hardware for current and future high-power RF systems, from ... Fermilab is America's premier laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research, funded by ...

Researchers build ambitious AI models. Silicon teams build powerful hardware. Infrastructure teams ... Silicon Architecture Fluency You've worked with processor, accelerator, or custom silicon ...

Propose and conduct novel research to achieve results on Sohu that are unviable on GPUs * Translate ... other hardware accelerators Benefits * Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with 100% of ...

Propose and conduct novel research to achieve results on Sohu that are unviable on GPUs * Translate ... other hardware accelerators Benefits * Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with 100% of ...

Propose and conduct novel research to achieve results on Sohu that are unviable on GPUs * Translate ... other hardware accelerators Benefits * Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with 100% of ...

Our mission is to maximize healthy, usable compute across accelerator vendors, generations, cloud ... We are the last line of defense for the success of OAI's production and research workloads. About ...

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Hardware Accelerator Research information

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How much do hardware accelerator research jobs pay per hour?

As of Jun 10, 2026, the average hourly pay for hardware accelerator research in the United States is $24.59, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $17.55 and $27.88 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between Hardware Accelerator Research vs Hardware Design Engineer?

AspectHardware Accelerator ResearchHardware Design Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or Master's in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields; knowledge of hardware architectureBachelor's or Master's in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields; proficiency in hardware design tools
Work EnvironmentResearch labs, R&D departments, academic settingsDesign teams, manufacturing facilities, corporate R&D divisions
Employer & Industry UsageTech companies, research institutions, semiconductor firmsElectronics companies, hardware manufacturers, tech firms
Common Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding research roles in hardware accelerationDesigning and developing hardware components

Hardware Accelerator Research focuses on exploring new hardware architectures and optimizing hardware acceleration techniques, often within research or academic settings. In contrast, Hardware Design Engineers develop and implement hardware components for commercial products. Both roles require similar educational backgrounds but differ in their focus—research versus practical design and deployment.

Infographic showing various Hardware Accelerator Research job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 3% As Needed, 87% Full Time, 7% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 90% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 7% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $51,154 per year, or $24.6 per hour.
Senior AI Performance Architect

Senior AI Performance Architect

Qualcomm

Raleigh, NC • On-site

$162K/yr

Full-time

Posted 23 days ago


Qualcomm rating

9.6

Company rating: 9.6 out of 10

Based on 5 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

5th of 188 rated software companies


Job description

Company:
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Job Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Machine Learning Engineering
General Summary:
Today, more intelligence is moving to end devices, and mobile is becoming a pervasive AI platform. At the same time, data centers are expanding AI capability through widespread deployment of ML accelerators. Qualcomm envisions making AI ubiquitous - expanding beyond mobile and powering other end devices, data centers, vehicles, and things. We are inventing, developing, and commercializing power-efficient on-device AI, edge cloud AI, data center and 5G to make this a reality.
We are looking for AI Accelerator Architecture Engineers to drive functional, performance and power enhancements into the HW to enable state of the art training capabilities. AI inference and training systems must scale to a large number of accelerators, servers and racks. Our devices must be designed to scale to handle the largest of today's models.
The AI Architecture team is comprised of experts that span the full gamut from software architecture, algorithm development, kernel optimization, down to hardware accelerator block architecture and SOC design. The ideal candidate will augment the team by contributing to one or many of these areas.
Responsibilities:
  • Understand trends in ML network design through customer engagements and latest academic research and determine how this will affect both SW and HW design
  • Work with customers to determine hardware requirements for AI training systems
  • Analysis of current accelerator and GPU architectures
  • Architect enhancements required for efficient training of AI models
  • Design and architecture of:
  • Flexible Computational Blocks
    • Involving a variety of datatypes : floating point, fixed point, microscaling
    • Involving a variety of precision : 32/16/8/4/2/1
    • Capable of optimally performing dense and sparse GEMM, GEMV
  • Memory Technology and subystems that are optimized for a range of requirements
    • Capacity
    • Bandwidth
    • Compute in Memory, Compute near memory
  • Scale-Out and Scale-Up Architectures
    • Switches, NoCs, Codesign with Communication Collectives
  • Optimized for Power
  • Ability to perform Competitive Analysis
  • Codesign HW with SW/GenAI (LLM) requirements
  • Define performance models to prove effectiveness of architecture proposals
  • Pre-Silicon prediction of performance for various ML training workloads
  • Perform analysis of performance/area/power trade-offs for future HW and SW ML algorithms including impact of SOC components (memory and bus impacts)

Requirements:
  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field
  • 3+ years Hardware Engineering experience defining architecture of GPUs or accelerators used for training of AI models
  • In-depth knowledge of nVidia/AMD GPU capabilities and architectures
  • Knowledge of LLM architectures and their HW requirements

Preferred Skills and Experience:
  • Knowledge of computer architecture, digital circuits and hardware simulators
  • Knowledge of communication protocols used in AI systems
  • Knowledge of Network-on-Chip (NoC) designs used in System-on-Chip (SoC) designs
  • Understanding of various memory technologies used in AI systems
  • Experience in modeling hardware and workloads in order to extract performance and power estimates
  • High-level hardware modeling experience preferred
  • Knowledge of AI Training systems such as NVIDIA DGX and NVL72
  • Experience training and finetuning LLMs using distributed training framework such as DeepSpeed, FSDP
  • Knowledge of front-end ML frameworks (i.e.,TensorFlow, PyTorch) used for training of ML models
  • Strong communication skills (written and verbal)
  • Detail-oriented with strong problem-solving, analytical and debugging skills
  • Demonstrated ability to learn, think and adapt in a fast-changing environment
  • Ability to code in C++ and Python
  • Knowledge of a variety of classes of ML models (i.e. CNN, RNN, etc)

Minimum Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2+ 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 1+ year of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field.
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:
$126,700.00 - $217,900.00
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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About Qualcomm

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

Qualcomm is enabling a world where everyone and everything can be intelligently connected. You interact with products and technologies made possible by Qualcomm every day, including 5G-enabled smartphones that double as pro-level cameras and gaming devices, smarter vehicles and cities, and the technology behind the smart, connected factories that manufactured your latest purchase. Our powerful connectivity solutions keep you connected—even in remote areas. Qualcomm 5G and AI innovations are the power behind the connected intelligent edge. You’ll find our technologies behind and inside the innovations that deliver significant value across multiple industries and to billions of people every day.

Industry

Technology, communication and media

Company size

10,000+ Employees

Headquarters location

San Diego, CA, US

Year founded

1985