Director, Lead Project Engineer (PE), Autonomous Driving Platform Delivery

Company:

Arriver Software, LLC

Job Area:

Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Systems Engineering

General Summary:

Qualcomm is seeking an experienced and highly influential engineering leader to serve as Director, Lead Project Engineer (PE), Autonomous Driving Platform Delivery. This role represents the highest level of technical ownership for strategic Autonomous Driving (AD) customer programs and is accountable for the successful delivery of end-to-end AD platform solutions from initial engagement through vehicle production launch.

The Director PE serves as the executive technical leader and single point of accountability across all engineering functions involved in customer program execution, including AD Stack Delivery, Systems Engineering, AD Core Software, Platform Solutions, Customer Engineering, Validation, Integration, Release Engineering, Safety, Quality, and external ecosystem partners.

This individual drives technical strategy, organizational alignment, execution excellence, risk management, and delivery predictability across highly complex, cross-functional programs. The Director PE partners closely with executives, customers, Tier 1 suppliers, software integration partners, and internal engineering organizations to ensure successful deployment of autonomous driving solutions on customer target platforms and production vehicles.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise in automotive software platforms, systems integration, validation, and vehicle deployment with exceptional leadership, stakeholder management, and program execution capabilities.

Responsibilities

End-to-End Program Technical Ownership

• Own overall technical strategy, execution, and delivery of large-scale Autonomous Driving customer programs.
• Establish program-level technical objectives, success criteria, execution frameworks, and delivery plans.
• Drive alignment of engineering milestones, deliverables, dependencies, and priorities across all contributing organizations.
• Ensure execution remains aligned with customer commitments, product roadmaps, quality objectives, and business goals.
• Serve as the primary technical decision-maker and escalation point for critical program issues.
• Provide executive leadership visibility into technical health, key dependencies, risks, issue resolution plans, and program readiness.
• Drive execution predictability through structured governance, technical reviews, and milestone management.
• Ensure successful customer acceptance, deployment readiness, and production launch.

• Cross-Organizational Engineering Leadership
• Provide leadership and technical direction across:

• AD Stack Delivery
• Systems Engineering
• Customer Engineering
• Validation and Integration
• Release Engineering
• Safety and Quality organizations

• Act as the primary engineering stakeholder toward:

• AD Core Software
• Platform Solutions
• Tier 1 partners
• Software Integration partners
• Customer engineering organizations

Key responsibilities include:

• Establishing unified execution models across multiple customer programs.
• Ensuring efficient utilization and integration of deliverables from core software, platform, Tier 1 suppliers, and customer teams.
• Driving accountability for committed deliverables and milestones.
• Resolving organizational conflicts, priority misalignment, and resource constraints.
• Managing critical cross-functional dependencies and execution risks.
• Facilitating executive-level technical tradeoffs and engineering decisions.
• Aligning all participating organizations around common program objectives and delivery commitments.

Platform Enablement and Integration Leadership

• Own integration strategy for deployment of Qualcomm AD software on customer target platforms.
• Drive hardware, software, infrastructure, tooling, and laboratory readiness across all phases of development.
• Ensure successful integration of platform software, middleware, AD applications, and customer-specific software components.
• Provide executive oversight of platform stabilization and integration issue resolution.
• Drive achievement of platform readiness criteria required for validation, qualification, and deployment milestones.
• Partner with platform and systems teams to proactively identify and mitigate integration risks.
• Ensure platform maturity supports efficient advancement into validation and vehicle deployment phases.

Pre-Integration Environment (PIE) Leadership

• Own readiness and execution of all customer and partner Pre-Integration Environment (PIE) activities.
• Define integration strategies, validation objectives, readiness metrics, and success criteria for PIE deployments.
• Drive alignment between Qualcomm engineering organizations, Tier 1 suppliers, software integration partners, and customer teams.
• Resolve complex integration challenges spanning software, systems, networking, infrastructure, tooling, and platform domains.
• Ensure PIE activities effectively reduce program risk and accelerate downstream validation and vehicle deployment activities.
• Monitor execution progress and drive rapid closure of blockers impacting integration readiness.

HIL and Validation Strategy

• Serve as executive stakeholder for Verification and Validation (V&V) organizations supporting program execution.
• Ensure Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) environments are developed, deployed, maintained, and scaled to support program needs.
• Drive alignment between validation strategies and program milestones.
• Ensure test infrastructure, automation frameworks, and validation assets support delivery commitments.
• Oversee validation readiness reviews and qualification gates.
• Drive closure of critical validation issues impacting deployment schedules.
• Ensure validation activities provide measurable confidence in software, platform, and system readiness.

Vehicle Deployment and Production Readiness

• Lead engineering readiness for vehicle integration, validation, and production deployment activities.
• Ensure successful transition from platform bring-up to HIL, vehicle testing, customer acceptance, and production launch.
• Drive cross-functional resolution of deployment blockers.
• Monitor program health indicators and readiness gates throughout deployment cycles.
• Ensure production programs meet quality, safety, reliability, and performance objectives.
• Support launch readiness reviews and executive milestone assessments.

Technical Risk and Execution Management

• Establish program-level risk management frameworks.
• Proactively identify technical, integration, platform, validation, and deployment risks.
• Drive mitigation planning and execution across stakeholders.
• Balance short-term delivery objectives with long-term architectural integrity and product strategy.
• Ensure transparent communication of risks, dependencies, and mitigation plans to executive leadership and customers.
• Drive data-driven decision-making across engineering organizations.

Customer and Executive Engagement

• Act as the senior technical representative for customer programs.
• Build trusted relationships with executive customer stakeholders, engineering leadership, and ecosystem partners.
• Lead executive technical reviews, status updates, issue escalations, and milestone discussions.
• Influence strategic customer decisions and deployment roadmaps.
• Ensure customer expectations are aligned with program realities, priorities, and delivery plans.
• Represent program status, challenges, and recommendations to Qualcomm executive leadership.

Minimum Qualifications

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

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Autonomous Driving or ADAS software stacks.
• Strong knowledge of automotive software platforms, middleware, Linux-based systems, and embedded architectures.
• Familiarity with HIL, SIL, simulation, validation, and vehicle testing methodologies.
• Understanding of automotive functional safety, quality management, and release processes.
• Experience working with OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and automotive ecosystem partners.
• Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries without direct authority.
• Exceptional leadership, problem-solving, negotiation, and conflict-resolution capabilities.
• Experience operating at executive levels within global engineering organizations.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic Technical Leadership
• Cross-Functional Influence
• Executive Communication
• Customer Focus
• Systems Thinking
• Complex Problem Solving
• Organizational Alignment
• Delivery Excellence
• Risk Management
• Decision Making Under Ambiguity
• Accountability and Ownership
• Continuous Improvement

Qualcomm Expectations

Qualcomm is committed to fostering a collaborative, innovative, and inclusive environment where leaders drive breakthrough technologies that shape the future of intelligent transportation. The Director, Lead Project Engineer is expected to champion engineering excellence, operational rigor, customer success, and innovation while enabling scalable delivery of world-class Autonomous Driving solutions.

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 View email address on click.appcast.io 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).

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.

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits:

$186,900.00 - $280,300.00

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.