AI Lead – Autonomous Driving​/Reasoning​/Vision Language Action Models

AI Lead, Autonomous Driving

Qualcomm's Autonomous Driving team is defining the future of safe, intelligent transportation. We are seeking an AI Lead, Autonomous Driving to lead the design and development of our next generation E2E Driving models (VLA, World model based,...) for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). AI systems that enable vehicles to perceive, reason, and act in complex real-world driving scenarios. This role combines cutting edge research with practical deployment on Qualcomm's advanced automotive-grade AI platforms.

What You'll Do

• Research the latest trends in autonomous driving AI, End-to-End stack, World Models and VLA model development to inform Qualcomm's autonomous driving roadmap.
• Design and develop e2e Driving Models for ADAS and autonomous driving applications.
• Build and maintain training pipelines, datasets, and evaluation benchmarks for autonomous driving AI.
• Establish metrics, evaluation frameworks, and simulation strategies for robust system validation (real-world + simulation).
• Optimize models for real-time, on-device performance on Qualcomm automotive platforms (edge AI deployment, acceleration, efficiency).
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams across software, hardware, product, and partner ecosystems to deliver production-grade systems.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to building a high-performing AI systems team.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 8+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 7+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related field (PhD preferred).

• Strong experience in deep learning, autonomous driving stacks (transformers, VLMs, multimodal models) and autonomous driving AI system deployments.

• Proficiency in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or Tensor Flow.

• Proven experience in system design and integration across complex AI stacks.

• Experience deploying AI systems on embedded/edge platforms with real-time constraints.

• Strong understanding of automotive software stacks, simulation environments, and validation workflows.

• Background in vision-language models, policy learning, or autonomous driving foundation models.

• Experience with autonomous driving dataset curation, sensor simulation, or sim-to-real transfer.

• Knowledge of model compression techniques (quantization, distillation) for efficient deployment.

• Strong communication skills and ability to work in a collaborative, fast-paced environment.

Why Join Us?

• Work on cutting edge autonomous driving AI that bridges research and real-world impact.

• Collaborate with worldclass teams building the next generation of intelligent autonomous vehicles and ADAS solutions.

• Access to advanced hardware, simulation tools, and Qualcomm's AI acceleration technologies.

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 disabili or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able to participate in the hiring process.

Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities.

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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: $ - $