Senior Staff / Principal Software Architect – System Level Datacenter AI Platforms - Riyadh, KSA

About This Role

Company Qualcomm Middle East Information Technology Company LLC

Job Area Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Systems Engineering

General Summary About the role Qualcomm is growing its presence in Riyadh and is hiring Data Centre Engineers to support our expanding infrastructure across the region . As Saudi Arabia accelerates its digital transformation under Vision 2030, Qualcomm is investing in world‑class computing and data centre capabilities to power AI, cloud, and advanced connectivity at scale. This is a unique opportunity to work in a fast‑growing technology hub, supporting critical environments and helping shape the future of data centre operations in the Kingdom and beyond.

Qualcomm is seeking a Senior Staff / Principal Software Architect to define, evolve, and technically lead rack management software platforms for AI accelerator deployments in hyperscale and sovereign data center environments. This role is responsible for end-to-end architectural ownership across provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, security, and lifecycle management for rack-scale AI systems spanning heterogeneous hardware and software stacks.

The architect will operate at the intersection of hardware, firmware, infrastructure software, and operations , setting long-term technical direction while remaining hands-on where critical. This role partners closely with platform architects, hardware teams, ODMs, ISVs, and customer engineering teams to deliver scalable, secure, and operable rack management systems in production data centers.

Key Responsibilities Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Own the end-to-end architecture for rack management software covering provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, and lifecycle management for AI accelerator racks.
• Define reference architectures, design patterns, and technical standards for rack-scale management software across Qualcomm data center platforms.
• Drive architectural decisions across control plane, telemetry, security, and lifecycle workflows while balancing scale, reliability, and operability.
• Review and approve designs across teams; provide architectural mentorship to Senior and Staff engineers.

Rack & Hardware Integration

• Architect integrations with rack-level hardware components including BMCs, PDUs, CDUs, PCIe switches, and accelerators using Redfish, SNMP, IPMI, and vendor-specific extensions.
• Establish scalable approaches for firmware lifecycle management, crash dump collection, remote diagnostics, and failure isolation.
• Define system behavior across power, thermal, networking, and PCIe fabrics at rack scale.

Platform & Orchestration Integration

• Architect integration between rack management software and cluster orchestration and provisioning frameworks (e.g., Kubernetes, Terraform, Foreman).
• Partner with AI platform teams to align rack-level controls with AI workload orchestration, scheduling, and capacity management.
• Enable multi-rack / multi-cluster federation patterns where required for large deployments.

Observability, Reliability & Operations

• Define telemetry, observability, and diagnostics architectures using systems such as Prometheus, Grafana, and log aggregation pipelines.
• Establish architectural frameworks for reliability, fault isolation, MTTR reduction, and Day-2 operations.
• Ensure operational readiness with clear runbooks, dashboards, and escalation paths aligned to real-world datacenter operations.

Security & Multi-Tenancy

• Architect secure rack management systems with secure boot, role-based access control, VLAN separation, QoS enforcement, and tenant isolation.
• Partner with security and compliance teams to ensure designs meet enterprise and sovereign datacenter requirements.
• Establish guidelines for credential handling, secrets management, and auditability across rack management workflows.

Cross-Functional & External Collaboration

• Serve as the technical point of contact with ODMs, ISVs, and component vendors (e.g., Pegatron) for rack software interfaces and protocols.
• Drive software EBOM strategy, interface specifications, and protocol documentation.
• Influence roadmaps across hardware, firmware, software, and operations teams through technical leadership rather than direct authority.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in infrastructure or systems software development, with architect-level ownership in at least part of that career.
• Deep proficiency in Python, C++, and system-level scripting.
• Proven experience designing systems that interact closely with server hardware, networking, and storage.
• Strong experience with Redfish APIs, DCIM tools, and rack or datacenter management platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across multiple teams and influence without direct reporting lines.
• Exceptional debugging skills across hardware/software boundaries in production systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience architecting or operating rack-scale or cluster-scale AI infrastructure.
• Familiarity with OpenBMC ecosystems and tools (e.g., Gigabyte Pod Manager).
• Experience designing large-scale telemetry, logging, and observability systems.
• Exposure to AI workload orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes, Kubeflow).
• Prior experience working directly with ODMs or silicon/platform vendors.
• Background in datacenter reliability engineering, capacity planning, or SRE models.

Role Expectations at This Level

• Acts as technical authority for rack management software
• Drives long-term architectural consistency, not just project delivery
• Raises the technical bar across the organization through mentorship and design leadership
• Remains hands-on where it matters, but optimizes for scale and leverage

What's On Offer Apart from working with great people, we offer the below:

• Salary including housing & transport allowance
• Stock (RSU's) and performance related bonus
• 16 weeks fully paid Maternity Leave
• 6 weeks fully paid Paternity Leave
• Employee stock purchase scheme
• Child Education Allowance
• Relocation and immigration support (if needed)
• Life and Medical Insurance
• Live+ Well Reimbursement for health and recreational membership fees

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.

• References to a particular number of years experience are for indicative purposes only. Applications from candidates with equivalent experience will be considered, provided that the candidate can demonstrate an ability to fulfill the principal duties of the role and possesses the required competencies.

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