General Summary:We are seeking an exceptional Principal IT Engineer to serve as the senior-most technical authority within the infrastructure engineering organization. This role is responsible for defining infrastructure strategy, driving technology modernization, and ensuring the delivery of secure, scalable, and resilient platforms that support critical business operations and government mission requirements.
As the highest-level individual contributor within the organization, the Principal IT Engineer provides technical leadership across enterprise infrastructure, network architecture, cloud platforms, identity services, virtualization, endpoint management, storage technologies, and automation. This individual establishes engineering standards, influences executive decision-making, drives architectural governance, and leads the resolution of the organization's most complex technical challenges.
The successful candidate will have a proven track record of leading large-scale infrastructure initiatives, developing long-term technology roadmaps, mentoring engineering teams, and partnering with executive leadership to align technology investments with business objectives and mission requirements.
This position requires an active
U.S. Top Secret (TS/SCI) security clearance and the ability to maintain that clearance throughout employment. Candidates must be
U.S. citizens and capable of working with sensitive and classified information in accordance with government and customer security requirements. Experience supporting classified environments and working within NIST, RMF, CMMC, FedRAMP, and related federal compliance frameworks is strongly desired.
This position is
ON-SITE only and is in
San Diego, CA.
Minimum Qualifications:• 8+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor's degree.
OR
10+ years of IT-related work experience without a Bachelor's degree.
*Completed advanced degrees in a relevant field may be substituted for up to two years (Master's = one year, Doctorate = two years) of work experience.
Key ResponsibilitiesTechnical Leadership & Enterprise Architecture
- Serve as the senior technical authority and subject matter expert for enterprise infrastructure services
- Define and maintain strategic infrastructure roadmaps aligned with business and mission objectives
- Lead the design, architecture, and implementation of enterprise-scale infrastructure solutions
- Establish engineering standards, reference architectures, technical governance models, and operational frameworks
- Drive enterprise-wide architectural decisions spanning infrastructure, networking, cloud platforms, identity services, and endpoint technologies
- Evaluate emerging technologies and provide recommendations regarding adoption, modernization, lifecycle management, and investment strategy
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to executive leadership on technology strategy, risk management, and infrastructure investments
- Lead technical decision-making for highly complex programs and initiatives spanning multiple engineering teams
- Act as the final technical escalation point for high-risk architectural, security, operational, and performance-related issues
- Partner with cybersecurity, compliance, and risk management teams to ensure infrastructure architectures meet security and regulatory requirements
Network Architecture & Solution Design
- Define enterprise network architectures supporting both classified and unclassified environments
- Lead network modernization initiatives involving segmentation, resiliency, Zero Trust principles, and secure connectivity
- Establish standards for network reliability, scalability, performance, and security
- Lead end-to-end infrastructure and network solution design efforts, ensuring solutions are secure, supportable, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards
- Produce and review technical designs, implementation strategies, and operational transition plans
- Assess solution alternatives and provide recommendations that balance business needs, cost, risk, security, and operational supportability
Security, Compliance & Governance
- Design and implement infrastructure solutions that comply with government, regulatory, and customer security requirements
- Develop and maintain technical controls aligned with:
- NIST SP 800-171
- NIST SP 800-53
- RMF
- CMMC
- FedRAMP
- Zero Trust Architecture principles
- Support audits, accreditation activities, compliance assessments, and continuous monitoring initiatives
- Ensure infrastructure services remain audit-ready and compliant with applicable contractual and regulatory requirements
Engineering Excellence & Operational Leadership
- Lead resolution efforts for the organization's most complex technical and operational incidents
- Provide technical leadership during major incidents, service disruptions, and critical business-impacting events
- Drive root cause analysis, corrective actions, and continuous improvement initiatives
- Establish operational engineering standards, service reliability objectives, and performance metrics
- Champion automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, configuration management, and engineering best practices
- Identify technical debt and develop remediation and modernization strategies aligned with business priorities
Program & Project Leadership
- Lead enterprise-wide infrastructure modernization and transformation initiatives
- Partner with Program Managers, Architects, Cybersecurity teams, and Business Leaders to ensure successful delivery of strategic programs
- Provide executive-level reporting, technical recommendations, architectural guidance, and risk assessments
- Evaluate project dependencies, architectural impacts, implementation risks, and operational considerations
- Influence prioritization of technology investments and engineering initiatives
Mentorship & Organizational Influence
- Mentor engineers through technical leadership, architecture reviews, coaching, and knowledge sharing
- Develop future technical leaders and contribute to organizational engineering maturity
- Lead architecture reviews and engineering governance activities
- Establish and promote engineering best practices across teams
- Foster a culture of accountability, technical excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement
- Represent Infrastructure Engineering in executive briefings, customer engagements, and strategic planning discussions
- Influence technical decisions and organizational direction without direct managerial authority
Required QualificationsEducation
- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; or equivalent experience.
- Master's degree preferred.
Experience
- Minimum 12+ years of progressive experience in enterprise infrastructure engineering, architecture, or operations.
- Minimum 5 years operating at a senior technical leadership level with responsibility for enterprise architecture, engineering strategy, infrastructure modernization, or enterprise-wide initiatives.
- Demonstrated success leading complex infrastructure modernization and transformation efforts.
- Experience serving as a senior technical authority across multiple technology domains.
- Experience developing enterprise architecture standards, governance processes, and long-term technology roadmaps.
- Proven ability to translate business and mission requirements into scalable, secure, and supportable technical solutions.
- Experience supporting classified, regulated, or government environments.
- Experience partnering with executive leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
Technical Qualifications
- Deep expertise in enterprise infrastructure architecture, engineering, and operations.
- Strong experience designing and supporting secure Microsoft-based environments, including cloud, identity, endpoint, and collaboration services.
- Demonstrated expertise in network architecture, solution design, and infrastructure modernization.
- Experience with enterprise virtualization, storage, data protection, and end-user computing platforms.
- Strong understanding of automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, configuration management, and engineering best practices.
- Experience designing and implementing Zero Trust architectures and security-focused infrastructure solutions.
- Experience supporting classified, regulated, or government environments, including compliance with NIST, RMF, CMMC, and FedRAMP frameworks.
- Proven ability to evaluate emerging technologies and translate business and mission requirements into scalable, secure, and supportable technical solutions.
- Experience supporting GCC High, Azure Government, classified cloud environments, or equivalent highly regulated platforms preferred.
- Relevant industry certifications such as CISSP, CISM, Microsoft, VMware, or cloud certifications preferred.
Key Competencies
- Strategic technical leadership
- Enterprise architecture and systems thinking
- Executive communication and stakeholder engagement
- Technology vision and roadmap development
- Architectural governance and decision-making
- Infrastructure and network solution design
- Risk identification and mitigation
- Technical risk management
- Technology investment planning
- Innovation and technology evaluation
- Organizational change leadership
- Influence without direct authority
- Engineering mentorship and talent development
- Incident leadership and crisis management
- Business and mission alignment
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to balance security, reliability, performance, scalability, and operational efficiency
- Strong accountability, ownership, and results-oriented mindset
Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits: $168,400.00 - $252,600.00
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.
