Speech & Audio Research Engineer

Job Title

Qualcomm's Multimedia R&D Group is seeking candidates to join its world-class Speech team developing novel technologies enabling the future of real-time communication and collaboration.

Qualcomm's Multimedia R&D Group conducts fundamental research inventing new algorithms, models, and systems that allow people to engage with one another and their devices in natural ways through speech and gestures over wireless communication devices and networks. Our multi-disciplinary research spans multiple communication modalities and feeds into Qualcomm's industry-leading businesses across mobile, XR, Compute, IoT, and Automotive. Our technologies have been incorporated into international standards and deployed in mobile devices around the world.

We are seeking candidates with technical excellence in Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Machine Learning, and Speech/Audio Processing, with the creativity and initiative to apply their technical knowledge to exciting new modalities and platforms for human-to-human and human-to-machine communication.

The selected candidate will have responsibilities in one or more of the following areas:

• Fundamental research in the fields of signal processing and machine learning
• Advanced use cases for human interaction that combine communication modalities from areas such as speech, audio (including 3D), natural language, video, computer vision, and graphics
• Research, development, and standardization of new conversational speech codecs for wireless networks
• Developing technologies for real-time communication in virtual/augmented reality and metaverse applications
• Design and implementation of embedded neural network models, including model optimization & quantization
• Systems level implementation and prototyping of communication systems, including live-network testing

Strong candidates for this position will possess the following skills and experience:

• Experience with digital signal processing techniques including signal modeling, linear prediction, spectrum analysis and estimation, statistical signal processing, filter design and implementation, adaptive filter theory, and signal enhancement
• Experience with Deep Learning, including a wide variety of architectures such as CNN, RNN, LSTM/GRU, and Transformer, plus familiarity with common toolkits such as Tensor Flow or Py Torch
• Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills
• Programming skills in C/C++ and Python, and experience in Windows or Unix/Linux development environments
• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering

The ideal candidate will further possess these additional skills and experience:

• Expertise in speech and audio signal processing, in domains such as speech coding, speech enhancement, automatic speech recognition (ASR), or text-to-speech (TTS) and/or neural synthesis
• Experience with deep learned representations and self-supervised learning
• Experience with capture, transmission, and rendering of speech and audio
• Experience developing algorithms and systems for mobile voice telephony and/or voice interfaces
• Embedded software development for ARM, DSP, and/or neural signal processing hardware
• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 2+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience.

* Works in the lab, can use hazardous chemicals (e.g., glue, machinery).

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits: $ - $