My friend gets an offer from this company. Should he accept the offer or look for other positions? He wants some honest opinions from the insiders.
9 replies (most recent on top)
I am also facing a similar question. I do have an offer from Apple as well as Qualcomm R&D. I am wondering what is the work culture in general at Qualcomm R&D? I have never worked for both of these companies, and I have no insider knowledge.
Before current management : Qcom 20 best companies to work for
After current management: not in he list of first 100
Avoid like the plague!
An offer to do what at Qualcomm, SW, HW, mechanical or something else?
Qualcomm had some very toxic departments, you must form your question better. We need to know job and city to better advise.
In general, without more specifics, Qualcomm is NOT a good workplace. It was a great workplace, up to about several years ago. Current CEO and his leutenants, as he likes to call them, have solidly demonstrated massive incompetence. (at least they've been consistently bad)
The labor market around San Diego isn't much if you leave Qualcomm. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. In the chip field, opportunities aren't easy to find.
Large companies are known for teams that subdivide tasks to shorten development schedules. Q (and FAANG for that matter) is, like the first person said, you end up owning/doing one thing.
Doesn't help that MSM chips are billion dollar efforts with thousands of people involved . But, smaller companies tend to get bought up by larger companies. I don't forsee anything that causes a FAANG stock or Qualcomm to double in the next decade (no, I don't see myself wanting a 5G phone but thanks for asking.)
But, the right startup could be a lottery ticket if you can get on board with the right experience.
Get involved in the entire process including testing and problem solving. It's tough boring work that takes forever. But, if you own it, you will be more valuable for smaller companies who will treat you like an asset, not headcount.
Google it.
What is a FAANG?
The engineering market is pretty hot right now. I’d use the QUALCOMEDY offer as leverage somewhere else. I worked their and was part of the 2018 mass layoff. Went to a FAANG for almost 2X the compensation.
Mid management is really bad. Most aren’t technical, play favorites, and their only skills are marginal expertise with PowerPoint and Excel.
Unless he just wants to get his one horrific career mistake out of the way early, is advise against it.
I understand that being a chip designer only happens at larger companies. Smaller companies will size you up on being a one-man band.
If you see an opportunity to be the bed-sh–ter fresh out of college (and San Diego doesn’t have the labor pool of Silicon Valley, so that helps), then you basically have to get a job in your field and make the best of it.
Qualcomm uses the borderline defective CAD software that someone (single digit employee number) dictated because it could cross probe between the schematic and the board. Well, all cad systems do that. Single-Digit was the leader of the handset division and I’ll let you figure out how that ended up.
The problem with Qualcomm is you will be focused on that one task. You will own that task.
And, it renders your friend useless to companies that have secrets to keep(Microsoft calls them tents) and don’t bring all the specialists on board. If all you do is the design part and none of the other support tasks that come along with it, you get perceived as one who sh–s the bed but doesn’t know how to clean it up.