STEM OPT Staff Software Engineer Jobs
Staff Software Engineer roles sit squarely within STEM OPT eligibility, typically requiring a computer science, software engineering, or related STEM degree. Your 24-month STEM OPT extension gives you up to 36 months total to build the sponsorship track record these senior roles demand, and every employer must be enrolled in E-Verify.
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Get Access To All JobsCompany:
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Job Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Software Engineering
General Summary:
About Qualcomm Robotics
Qualcomm Advanced Robotics Team is building the AI first stack and platform for the next generation general purpose robots - from AMRs and cobots to emerging humanoids by pairing heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) with a full Robotics SDK and developer tooling for manipulation, perception, navigation, and fleet workflows. We are leveraging our success in automated driving product portfolio, advanced AI end to end development and tools, and safety architecture to accelerate the growth in this emerging market.
The Opportunity
As Software Engineer, you will be the senior technical developer for Qualcomm’s robotics software platform —defining the end‑to‑end architecture, raising the engineering bar across core middleware and services (ROS 2/DDS), and leading cross‑functional teams to deliver production‑grade SDKs and reference solutions that customers can take to market. You’ll combine deep systems expertise with hands‑on leadership across perception/SLAM, planning & control, real‑time Linux/MCU, and on‑device AI shipping robust software on Qualcomm robotics SoCs.
What you’ll do
- Develop the software architecture for the Qualcomm Robotics platform interfaces, runtime, QoS, and safety envelopes across Linux + MCU subsystems; drive DDS/ROS 2 patterns for reliable, real‑time data flow on heterogeneous compute, and system mapping and optimization to Qualcomm Robotics platform.
- Develop the platform roadmap and technical design reviews across perception (VIO/VSLAM, DFS), mapping, semantic scene understanding, navigation, manipulation, and SDK components; ensure high performance and low power on our SoCs.
- Drive real‑world validation using sim‑in‑the‑loop and HIL; establish metrics for robustness, determinism, and regression across camera/IMU/LiDAR stacks and whole‑robot scenarios.
- Optimize for heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) and camera pipeline/ISP; guide teams on concurrency, memory/power budgets, and accelerator utilization for on‑device AI.
- Champion safety & reliability practices and interfaces compatible with relevant standards (e.g., ISO 26262/IEC 61508 alignment where applicable) and design for field diagnostics, observability, and OTA update paths.
- Mentor and grow senior engineers across core platform, perception, controls, and SDK setting crisp technical direction, code quality bars, and review culture.
- Engage customers & partners as the senior technical face of the platform clarify requirements, guide integrations, and translate learnings into the roadmap.
How you’ll lead
- Set the technical bar for platform correctness, determinism, and developer experience.
- Coach senior ICs and tech leads, building a strong review culture and CI/CD discipline for robotics.
- Partner with product and silicon teams to align software roadmaps with SoC capabilities and customer needs.
Why Qualcomm
- Opportunity to shape the software heart of a rapidly scaling robotics portfolio used across industrial, commercial, and emerging humanoid form factors.
- Build on a mature developer ecosystem (RBx/QRB platforms, on‑device AI toolchains) and ship at the edge, globally.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
OR
Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 2+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
- 2+ years of work experience with Programming Language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 5+ years in software engineering, with 4+ years building robotics platforms, Ubuntu, ROS2 or complex real‑time distributed systems; proven record shipping SDKs or core runtimes.
- Expert in C++ (modern) and Python with production experience in ROS 2 and DDS (QoS, discovery, message design, and tracing).
- Depth in: Physical AI embedded and virtual platforms, SLAM/visual‑inertial odometry, dense/stereo depth, semantic mapping, planning & controls, or manipulation —with demonstrable system‑level integration on embedded platforms.
- Strong background in Linux for robotics, real‑time considerations, and MCU/RTOS interactions (time sync, safety islands, bootloaders, field firmware management).
- Performance engineering on heterogeneous SoCs (CPU/GPU/NPU/DSP) and camera/ISP stacks; hands‑on profiling and optimization.
- BS/MS in CS, EE, Robotics, or related field (PhD a plus).
- Track record leading large cross‑functional efforts (architecture docs, design reviews, de‑risking, postmortems) that landed in customer products.
- Experience delivering developer‑facing SDKs and documentation; familiarity with Qualcomm robotics stacks and ROS 2 package ecosystems.
- Demonstrated results in on‑device AI for perception or policy (model optimization, quantization, or pipeline fusion) on edge devices.
- Contributions to ROS/ROS 2 or relevant open‑source robotics projects; publications/patents in SLAM, perception, manipulation, or real‑time systems.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
- Leverages advanced Software knowledge and experience to design, develop, create, modify, and validate critical embedded and cloud edge software, applications, and/or specialized utility programs.
- Analyzes user needs, software requirements, and time and cost constraints to design and customize sophisticated software for optimal operational efficiency.
- Designs and implements software sub-systems for complex, large-scale products and systems.
- Leads design, coding, and testing efforts to ensure that projects are completed to specifications and schedules.
- Performs highly complex code reviews and regression tests as well as triages and fixes issues to ensure the quality of code.
- Collaborates with individuals outside the software function (e.g., Hardware, Systems, and Test engineers) to increase leverage and design solutions that work with other components of a specific project.
- Writes detailed technical documentation for highly complex Software projects; reviews technical documentation for junior engineers.
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.
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:
$151,900.00 - $227,900.00
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.
Company:
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Job Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Software Engineering
General Summary:
About Qualcomm Robotics
Qualcomm Advanced Robotics Team is building the AI first stack and platform for the next generation general purpose robots - from AMRs and cobots to emerging humanoids by pairing heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) with a full Robotics SDK and developer tooling for manipulation, perception, navigation, and fleet workflows. We are leveraging our success in automated driving product portfolio, advanced AI end to end development and tools, and safety architecture to accelerate the growth in this emerging market.
The Opportunity
As Software Engineer, you will be the senior technical developer for Qualcomm’s robotics software platform —defining the end‑to‑end architecture, raising the engineering bar across core middleware and services (ROS 2/DDS), and leading cross‑functional teams to deliver production‑grade SDKs and reference solutions that customers can take to market. You’ll combine deep systems expertise with hands‑on leadership across perception/SLAM, planning & control, real‑time Linux/MCU, and on‑device AI shipping robust software on Qualcomm robotics SoCs.
What you’ll do
- Develop the software architecture for the Qualcomm Robotics platform interfaces, runtime, QoS, and safety envelopes across Linux + MCU subsystems; drive DDS/ROS 2 patterns for reliable, real‑time data flow on heterogeneous compute, and system mapping and optimization to Qualcomm Robotics platform.
- Develop the platform roadmap and technical design reviews across perception (VIO/VSLAM, DFS), mapping, semantic scene understanding, navigation, manipulation, and SDK components; ensure high performance and low power on our SoCs.
- Drive real‑world validation using sim‑in‑the‑loop and HIL; establish metrics for robustness, determinism, and regression across camera/IMU/LiDAR stacks and whole‑robot scenarios.
- Optimize for heterogeneous compute (CPU/GPU/DSP/NPU) and camera pipeline/ISP; guide teams on concurrency, memory/power budgets, and accelerator utilization for on‑device AI.
- Champion safety & reliability practices and interfaces compatible with relevant standards (e.g., ISO 26262/IEC 61508 alignment where applicable) and design for field diagnostics, observability, and OTA update paths.
- Mentor and grow senior engineers across core platform, perception, controls, and SDK setting crisp technical direction, code quality bars, and review culture.
- Engage customers & partners as the senior technical face of the platform clarify requirements, guide integrations, and translate learnings into the roadmap.
How you’ll lead
- Set the technical bar for platform correctness, determinism, and developer experience.
- Coach senior ICs and tech leads, building a strong review culture and CI/CD discipline for robotics.
- Partner with product and silicon teams to align software roadmaps with SoC capabilities and customer needs.
Why Qualcomm
- Opportunity to shape the software heart of a rapidly scaling robotics portfolio used across industrial, commercial, and emerging humanoid form factors.
- Build on a mature developer ecosystem (RBx/QRB platforms, on‑device AI toolchains) and ship at the edge, globally.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
OR
Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 2+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.
- 2+ years of work experience with Programming Language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 5+ years in software engineering, with 4+ years building robotics platforms, Ubuntu, ROS2 or complex real‑time distributed systems; proven record shipping SDKs or core runtimes.
- Expert in C++ (modern) and Python with production experience in ROS 2 and DDS (QoS, discovery, message design, and tracing).
- Depth in: Physical AI embedded and virtual platforms, SLAM/visual‑inertial odometry, dense/stereo depth, semantic mapping, planning & controls, or manipulation —with demonstrable system‑level integration on embedded platforms.
- Strong background in Linux for robotics, real‑time considerations, and MCU/RTOS interactions (time sync, safety islands, bootloaders, field firmware management).
- Performance engineering on heterogeneous SoCs (CPU/GPU/NPU/DSP) and camera/ISP stacks; hands‑on profiling and optimization.
- BS/MS in CS, EE, Robotics, or related field (PhD a plus).
- Track record leading large cross‑functional efforts (architecture docs, design reviews, de‑risking, postmortems) that landed in customer products.
- Experience delivering developer‑facing SDKs and documentation; familiarity with Qualcomm robotics stacks and ROS 2 package ecosystems.
- Demonstrated results in on‑device AI for perception or policy (model optimization, quantization, or pipeline fusion) on edge devices.
- Contributions to ROS/ROS 2 or relevant open‑source robotics projects; publications/patents in SLAM, perception, manipulation, or real‑time systems.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
- Leverages advanced Software knowledge and experience to design, develop, create, modify, and validate critical embedded and cloud edge software, applications, and/or specialized utility programs.
- Analyzes user needs, software requirements, and time and cost constraints to design and customize sophisticated software for optimal operational efficiency.
- Designs and implements software sub-systems for complex, large-scale products and systems.
- Leads design, coding, and testing efforts to ensure that projects are completed to specifications and schedules.
- Performs highly complex code reviews and regression tests as well as triages and fixes issues to ensure the quality of code.
- Collaborates with individuals outside the software function (e.g., Hardware, Systems, and Test engineers) to increase leverage and design solutions that work with other components of a specific project.
- Writes detailed technical documentation for highly complex Software projects; reviews technical documentation for junior engineers.
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.
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:
$151,900.00 - $227,900.00
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.
See all 536+ Staff Software Engineer jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Staff Software Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding STEM OPT Authorization as a Staff Software Engineer
Verify your CIP code before applying
Check that your degree's Classification of Instructional Programs code maps to an approved STEM field through USCIS. Computer science, software engineering, and information systems degrees typically qualify, but interdisciplinary or business-adjacent STEM degrees sometimes require your DSO to confirm eligibility before you submit your STEM OPT extension.
Confirm E-Verify enrollment before accepting offers
Ask your recruiter for the company's E-Verify company ID or have HR pull their enrollment status directly from the E-Verify portal. A verbal assurance isn't enough. Staff-level roles often involve longer offer-to-start timelines, so catching a non-enrolled employer early prevents delays that could jeopardize your authorization window.
Benchmark your offer against prevailing wage data
Use the OFLC Wage Search to look up the Level III or Level IV prevailing wage for software developer roles in your metro area before negotiating. Staff Engineer titles frequently correspond to Level III or IV wage tiers, and understanding the DOL benchmark strengthens your position and signals H-1B readiness to future-focused employers.
Target employers with structured I-983 processes
Ask during interviews whether the company has filed training plans for OPT students before. Employers unfamiliar with the I-983 often delay or incorrectly complete it, which can create compliance gaps. Larger engineering organizations with dedicated HR immigration teams are more likely to have a repeatable process already in place.
Search Migrate Mate to filter Staff Engineer roles by E-Verify status
Filter your Staff Software Engineer job search on Migrate Mate to surface only employers already enrolled in E-Verify. This removes the manual verification step from hundreds of applications and lets you focus interview energy on companies structurally ready to support your STEM OPT authorization from day one.
File your STEM OPT extension at least 90 days early
USCIS allows you to apply for the 24-month STEM OPT extension up to 90 days before your initial OPT expires. Submitting early gives you a cap-gap buffer if you're transitioning into an H-1B sponsorship cycle and protects continuous work authorization during USCIS processing at senior-level offer timelines.
Staff Software Engineer jobs are hiring across the US. Find yours.
Find Staff Software Engineer JobsFrequently Asked Questions
Does a Staff Software Engineer role qualify for STEM OPT?
Yes, Staff Software Engineer is a STEM-designated occupation under DOL's Standard Occupational Classification system. Your eligibility depends on your degree's CIP code, not just the job title. Computer science, software engineering, electrical engineering, and related STEM degrees qualify. Your DSO confirms your specific degree's eligibility and updates your I-20 before USCIS approves the 24-month extension.
What does the I-983 training plan require for a Staff Software Engineer?
The I-983 must document specific learning objectives tied to your STEM degree, a supervision structure, and how the role advances your technical training. For Staff Engineers, this typically means outlining system design responsibilities, mentorship of junior engineers, and technical domains covered. Your employer signs and retains the I-983, and your DSO must also sign before you begin the extension period.
How does cap-gap work if I'm a Staff Software Engineer on STEM OPT?
If your employer files an H-1B petition on your behalf before your STEM OPT expires and USCIS receives it by April 1, cap-gap automatically extends your work authorization through September 30. You can continue working at the Staff Engineer level during this period without any gap in authorization, as long as you remain with the same E-Verify-enrolled employer that filed the petition.
How do I find Staff Software Engineer employers enrolled in E-Verify?
Migrate Mate filters Staff Software Engineer job listings by E-Verify enrollment status, so you can focus on employers who are already structured to support STEM OPT authorization. E-Verify enrollment is a legal prerequisite for any employer hiring on STEM OPT, and verifying it before applying saves significant time late in the offer process.
Can I work at a startup as a Staff Software Engineer on STEM OPT?
Yes, but the startup must be enrolled in E-Verify before you begin working. Startups that have never sponsored a STEM OPT employee may not yet be enrolled. Confirm enrollment status directly with the hiring manager or HR contact, and build extra lead time into your offer negotiation so the company can complete E-Verify registration before your start date if needed.
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