As an engineer that had the opportunity to work at various telecom companies, including Qualcomm, I've noticed that a great company that once starts with "A players" ends up eventually hiring "B players" as the company gets bigger, which in turn ends up hiring "C to D- players" as the company grows even larger. And then pretty soon, when the company has a lot of C to D- players, groups/departments start engaging more in bean counting bullshit than doing real engineering, because that's all the C to D- players know how to do. It reminds me of all the 6 Sigma bullshit Motorola bean counters started to cram down employee's throat. I know companies like Samsung/Huawei/etc don't engage in this sort of excruciating bean counting ritual, which is probably why they can run more efficiently. Thoughts?
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Hiring C and D players is inevitable, when the company expects growth and would reward those who get the bodies on board to grind out products. Whether it is hiring H1B or hiring overseas, if you produce the results, you are rewarded. Sounds good? Well, we are seeing the result. Enough of those bad employees, you will see a shift in the culture and practice. Some are just here to reap the maximum benefit and leave.
I have great respect for those managers who worked their ways from bottom to top and proved themselves. On the other side there are some very unqualified new-hired “managers” that are here just to collect some RSU and then go somewhere else. Naturally, they haven’t built the required and related technical foundation to lead and when you deal with them, it is all about bullshit.
Director's and VP's are the biggest bull shitters.
if that is true, @Anonymous85184, why so much redundancy, fiefdom bickering and politics? Sounds like lots gets thru the BS filters.
Many Directors and VP's come up through the lower ranks meaning they've worked their way there from being an engineer first. This is the case at QCT in most cases. They are not like management in other companies. The middle management at QCT can spot bullshit right away. They can walk the walk and talk the talk.
yes directors and above except executive team
What titles would you consider middle management? Directors to VPs?
Samsung does not need bean counters. Employees show up before 9am and stay after 9pm, everyday. VPs get in at 6am and probably don’t go home.
People think they are "A" material as engineers the same way people think they are "middle class" (by virtue of eating factory farmed porterhouse!). Most of them simply aren't . but the real problem isn't too many Bs and Cs. Its the hubris that comes with dominating an industry and laughing off competitors like Intel. (Just because they haven't been successful in mobile...yet)
every big company has this problem....IBM used to have, Samsung has this problem.....the only ones which don't have this issue are the small companies.....6000 to 10000 employees.....but there are some unique problems with Qualcomm
a) being in San Diego...there is no natural attrition....people who work there try to work forever...because there are no other companies...."stagnation"
b) no regular layoffs....till 2013/2014 there were no major layoffs in QUALCOMM. Mollenkopf have changed that.....
c) massive growth in the number of employees: a lot of useless hiring....to much middle management....who are more interested in their next promotion, reviews and RSUs
are you sure about samsung? they seem to be infamous for precisely this kind of ritualistic bullshit.