Thread regarding Qualcomm Inc. layoffs

On my way out the door (as Senior Staff) I talked with some good friends about the stack ranking process. Whereever you are in the stack rank, you are stuck there. You can only move at most +/- 5% every review period. That means that if you are at 50th percentile for your rank, it will be 7 reviews before you could possibly get to 85th percentile. It doesn't matter if you save the company next quarter, the stack ranking will hold you back, and people will protect their 'pets' and if you're not a 'pet' of some fast-rising manager, you are out in the cold. I'm not kidding about this.

Over 50 and senior staff, you have at most 3-5 years before you are RIFed, it doesn't matter what you achieve, you are too expensive to keep around, and the only reason you are a senior staff is because you didn't brown-nose enough when you were in your 40's. Once I got a bonus, I got out while the getting was good and took a promotion at a higher ranked company than Qualcomm.

@ 109644: Let's re-analyze that from another perspective. Younger engineers aren't worth the money we pay them! They think they are god's gift to programming because they know how to design apps and have figured out L33T on their very own. (Too bad their documentation sounds like it was written by functional illiterates.) They claim to work 70-80 hrs. per week. But they neglect to mention that at least 10 of those hours were spent texting friends or goofing off on TheLayoff.com or checking out the company's stock price on various internet stock sites. Another another 10 hours per week is devoted to shameless self-promotion as they email PM's, directors and others, reminding them of their accomplishments yet again, and attempt to shmooze VPs. Another 25 or so is dedicated to learning the stuff they claimed to know on their resume so they can actually do productive work for 30+ hours per week. We subsidize their daily soft drinks and sugar rush. (Donuts.) We provide meals at close to cost in the company cafeteria--bacause god, knows, left to their own devices, they'd be claiming they were working all day in building K! They won't be productive for at least another 10 years. If Q had money to burn, we'd fire them all, and hire the 40+ year olds that Intel is laying off!

Let's face the truth- Old people suck as engineers. Engineers peak around the 5-10 year mark after graduation, then they go into a longer productive stage that ends around the age of 40. By the time someone hits 55, they wander aimlessly in the hallway trying to remember what they walked out of their office for. It takes twice as long to learn something new, they earn far too much money from their undeserved inflated titles. We need to shuffle them off to Soylent Green facilities for processing.

Most people I know use work as an excuse to get out of family time. Anything to avoid the wife and kids I guess! Don't PIP them.

@109463 - People that "consistently" use their family as excuse to leave work should get PiP'd. I am not saying that shiit doesnt happen but there are a good majority of lazy mofos that will do anything to get out of work. Even if these mofos were single, they would probably use their grandma or parents in the hospital story to get out of work. Thankfully the majority of the working class has some ethics and honesty and will put in a good days work. This is polluted by a small % of people that take advantage of the system and give a bad name to the rest of us. Point is, dont stereo type based on what you heard in the hallway or because your cubemate is one lazy MF.

Qualcomm values young and old engineers. Work hard and let's do this. Why Wait?

The best thing about young engineers is that they will be old too one day - if they are lucky to live long enough. Then, we can see what they have to say.

@109427 – Family is important and it is all a matter of priority. Young people go out to get drunk and that affects their productivity. However, few young people feel that QC is obligated to provide happy hour time. On the other hand, people with family somehow feel that QC has the obligation to provide working hours to take care of the family. This may be best thing to encourage the employees in the long run, but there is plenty of proof that young people are more productive, like you once were. How many times have you heard people say that I could not put in more time, because I have a family. Well, family is important, and so, you have to make the tradeoff.

@109407 Family is a burden? You dumb ass. What about all you single jerks that stay out late, drink and come in late cause your hung over. People who have and dont have family have a different set of problems. The more I read your post, the more NAIVE and STUPID you sound. Grow up.

You gotta love America. Lots of stereo-typing here based on Hollywood info which shows how dumb most people are. Firing 40 year olds to save money and to think older people cant keep with younger people. WOW, I cant believe what I am reading. No wonder this country is going downhill.

Wow - 65 hour weeks cannot be healthy long term!

@109407 I am 50, have 3 kids, and I work ~65 hours a week. What do you think about that?

I also run marathons, surf and do MMA with my 2 sons. Any other stupid ideas?

I believe this to be true for matrix orgs. The matrix removes your ability to own more responsibilities, so ony few break the glass ceiling via management.

young engineers who have energy and passion ,with no family can put in more hours

older engineers with family and with less passion....with family issues cant be that productive....

It is question of bringing ideas/knowledge/hardwork..... : every engineer has to bring something to the table....

the problem with older guys is that they loose in touch with everychanging work requirements and that is where they "FAIL"...

Engineering companies like q are unfortunately not set up to be able to differentiate much between different levels. Think about it, what is the most impact you can possibly have as an individual contributor? How much does that differ from what a Sr Staff or Senior engineer can possibly contribute? Forget your experience or years of work or even qualifications. What can you achieve, by yourself, that is significantly contributing more than what someone else can contribute? You reach a glass ceiling by ~15 years of experience, or Sr Staff. To have a larger impact, you are going to have to be a lead of a substantial technical team, or similar. So if you're not getting that opportunity you are screwed and will hit glass ceiling. and for the next 15-20 years that will be the state of it.

IMHO unless you have people backing you, change is not going to happen after Sr Staff.

Get used to it. Now get back to work!

The oldies like me over 40 has been aggravated here

but the point was:after u r out of college the learning curve in the beginning is quite steep n then it flats out

meaning an enginner with 5 years of exp is good enough in comparison with an engineer with 20 years of exp

on top of this a relatively young guy has no family baggage n thus can out in 80 hours week

where as old guys like us has kids n family to take care of

Been there. Was a little older than you when my promo finally came through. I am assuming you are in QCT. Since you have been in QC for a long time, folks that switched a few jobs and then joined QC later are probably doing better. The also probably got a little better management experience, as most groups in QC don't really grow or plan your career growth, but leave it you to figure this out yourself.

My 2 cents would be to make your displeasure and frustration known to your manager and directors. you will also need to assiduously cultivate your peers and other senior folks outside of your group (as their input is apparently what make the difference, for some reason known to HR and others who set the rules). Since most of them actually don't review your work, but mainly see you in meetings or email, this would mean you will have to be quite active spamming away, and in general make some amount of noise in meetings. Remember to resolve even small issues over publicly in Meetings or over email threads. It would greatly help if you are not the introverted type, and in general have some charisma going for you. You will also have to be smart enough to draw the border between over doing the self promotion, to actually being disruptive in general.

Hope that helps..

I would hire a 40 year old that has developed good skills and hard work ethics over any new college intern.... nuff said

40? WTF? Dumbest thing i heard yet.

The 40 year old rule Numb Nuts boy must be from HR looking for more ideas for the big rumored layoff.

Let's look at this I. Perspective. A young engineer pulls in about $100k-115k. A senior staff pulls in about $150-70k. The bean counters will say that if they get rid of one young AND old guy in US, they could hire like 20-30 people in bangalore which is an entire team.

All you young and old people are wasting your time arguing who they should get rid of, old versus young.....reality is, management think both of you are overpriced and would gladly try to replace you with 8 people from Bangalore for the same cost. The quality might not be as good, but it clearly hasn't stopped them...

I just turned 40 last week. Do I still have a job?

Upon reaching the age of 40 the old Qualcommers can be ritualistically zapped by lasers whilst suspended In mid air at the next QSol event.

This is amazing!!!! Someone please send this to SM so he add this to his plan of options to save the company.

@ 109371: It's not quite that simple. The EEOC and state agencies either monitor statistics, or routinely request statistics on employer termination to determine if certain practices and policies have discriminatory effect. Q has actually developed an elaborate subterfuge that permits them to essentially discriminate based on age, citizenship, etc. If they didn't know how to exploit the loopholes in the law, they would have been sued out the @$$ years ago. Also, the managers and directors are usually the ones who decide who ultimately gets cut--which is the sort of work VPs don't like to dirty their dainty hands with, when they balance the budget. In some ways, I feel bad for my replacement. On the other hand, my manager was functionally illiterate, and my director thought he was a hot shot engineer, but he probably hadn't updated his skills in years. Both are over 40. I'm hoping Karma is a real b*tch.

Looks like 109531 aggravated a lot of oldies here who have inflated title n pay

Hey. what if I join the military or take it easy for a few years and dont start work until I am 35. I only get to work for 5 years? WOOHOOO! I love it. When can we make this happen?

Help! My head is stuck up my ass and I can't get it out.

Everyone over 40 is fired? What a great idea. If this is true then there is no reason for having any structure. We can get rid of CEO/ CFO/ Sr VP/ VP etc. Imagine that? Bring in all new young people where everyone is the same grade and pay and can work until they are the RIPE old age of 40 and are let go. Total Genius at work here.

109367 - It seems your head is still stuck up your ass. OK wise guy, if you let go of everyone over 40, what do they do? Or better, what are you going to do?

Most 20 something think they are indispensable and invincible. Most don’t quite achieve that stature and come to realize it in their 30’s. Then, by the time they hit their 40’s it is clear, everyone is dispensable. You are not going to change the world, while working in QC. Even if you did well financially, you were just a servant of QC BOD and investors. So, the head seems to get pulled out of one’s ass in his 30’s, around mid life crisis.

I am 109531 and above 40

Do you all really think that you guys are in dispensable

Please take your head out of your ass and look around

the world has changed a lot since you put your head in...

@109351 How old are you?

@109351. What a dumb post. There are many very successful people at 40 or older that are valuable assets to the company. You sound like complete IDIOT.

109351 - Your a brainless moron.

If mgmt really wants to save money they should let go people who are above 40 and higher titled

Its a no brainer

harsh but true

Been there done that. Engineering in general at the Q has become highly political and "Balkanized." It's like the freakin' post office used to be (--and probably still is--) in the Bay Area, where different ethnic groups controlled different branches. On the minus side, HR has been swamped, recently, and had to bring on MORE employees. This is usually an indicator that something big, like a layoff is going to happen. When HR lays off people they follow a protocol. One of the first things they do is separate out the people who might have ANY legitimate basis for a lawsuit and run them past legal for evaluation: minorities, pregnant women, people over age 40, etc. You can find the process on HR training powerpoint presentations that have been leaked. Welcome to the ADEA group. The downside is that if they have no plans to eliminate your group/department or kill your project, you will probably be classed by legal as a litigation risk. What usually follows is downgrading your next review(s), then subjecting you to the inevitable PIP. The PIP is not about "improvement." It is merely the final measure that generates enough evidence to constitute cause for termination. You probably won't get a severance package if you leave on the other end of the PIP. They may offer some sort of "incentive" for signing away your rights--but that's nowhere near a WARN/Cal-WARN-type severance. You're 42. Obviously you have a lot of experience. If you have a manager who measures your value by hours spend at your desk, use at least some of this time to brush up on the skills that will make you attractive to future employers looking for experience; and make the jump before you are pushed. If you think you may want to pursue legal action, get copies of your employee records, the policy manuals, and any contracts or documents signed by you during your employment. (They are required by law to give these to you.) You may want to consult a lawyer before doing this--which is fine; but remember that bringing your lawyer to the Q with you to negotiate automatically puts you in an adversarial position with Q, and they have a lot more resources than most employees. It is also very difficult to win suits, because, from their view, exercising prudent business judgment, you can probably be replaced with 2 H1B hires, for less. It's unfortunate; but it's perfectly legal.

I am 51 and currently am a Senior Staff looking for a Director position. I work hard and provided long hours of reliable work but I dont kiss ass. There are others in my group that are friends with the Sr Directors & VPs and they were promoted from Senior Staff to Principal within a few years. So the current trend still applys to most, "Its not what you know, its who you know". Its sad but part of our business culture here. The good news is, at our level, we still get a pretty good compensation package with RSUs/Bonuses. So I am all for IOSing (not leaving QC) if you feel like your stuck. Sometimes, making new contacts is all you need to make that next step. Good Luck OP.