I really want to leave Qualcomm - but I don't want to leave without severance. I feel like I'd be throwing away money. So I feel like I'm stuck in a prison of my own making. Anybody else feels like this? Anybody actually decided to leave despite high probability of severance? Any regrets?
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I was at QC for 10 years through good times and bad. Maybe I should have taken control of the situation and left earlier voluntarily after the decline... but this would have meant moving out of state and leaving friends and extended family behind as there just weren’t many other local options available where I’m at until recently. Also, I too was afraid of missing out on 10 years worth of severance.
QC ended up announcing they planned to lay off half our site. One fourth left right away without severance due to work visa concerns, the other fourth got packages leaving us initially with a little less than half our former head count. I still had a job at this point. Over the next several months, attrition with no backfilling shrunk the group down to less than a fourth of its original size so there was plenty of work to go around and morale was low.
While most spent the next 6 months disgruntled, working short days and phoning their work in, I spent 6 months working like crazy learning everything I could and picking up all the various kinds of work that was available. I branched out of my typical work roles and took advantage of multiple training classes paid for by QC to help fill vacant roles. I also hit the gym regularly, lost weight, gained muscle and built up my confidence. When they laid the rest of us off, I was ready. Yes, it flooded the market but to our advantage. Multiple companies came to town and set up recruiting events to staff up from the newly available talent pool in our area.
I received 3 different local job offers, a huge severance payout and 2 months time off spent with the family with benefits and pay. At my new job, I got a base pay raise and a 200k signing bonus in stock. Best lay-off ever.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to time it just right, but I’m glad I was able to. The severance isn’t as important as your mental health and family stability. If I would have found a good local offer earlier, I would have left without it. Still, it’s not right to be cheated out of a severance after giving them a decade of your life and then having it turned upside down by bean counters. In the end, QC shut down nearly an entire site and only had to pay out severance to less than half of the people. I can’t help but wonder if that was by design.
If you find a great opportunity earlier take it, but I would not move early for a job that is worse. While you are still there in purgatory, try to view it as an opportunity. Make the most of your time by focusing on self improvement and new skill creation. This will greatly increase your marketable value as an employee, but don’t worry, QC will still lay you off anyway. Good luck.
OP; If you leave on your own, you are more marketable to another company and will come out ahead financially in the long run.
Once you get the severance the recruiters can smell the blood when they know you don't have a job. Of course they will low ball you for the new job. You end up making the same or less and you end up grabbing the 1st thing that comes.
I know plenty of people w/ 10+ years Q experience you felt the same way as you it took over 1 year to land a job and then he/she made much less. These were people at Sr Dir/VP level folks.
Of course if you can time it perfectly that is great and some pull it off. My (hard) learned lesson over the years is when you are in control of your destiny you tend to do better. Also you aren't wasting time at a company going nowhere hoping to collect an entitled check.
I waited and got the package and left. I got something else in 3 months so I didn't blow the entire severance. After I arrived at one of the FANG firms I realized I wasted 3-5 years of my career hanging out at Q going nowhere. That is time I won't get back and FANG RSUs I could have got a lot lower than I did when I joined.
Good luck and would recommend at least doing interview loops. It takes 3 to 6 months to close a deal anyways and who knows what Q will do to you by then. ;-)
Its so presumptuous to feel you are entitled to a severance. It's your choice to stay or go. No one and no company owes you anything. Grow up
Quit being a Qwhiner, find another job, and just quit.
@1tgj : you are not alone !
Me too, sort of. I am happily waiting my turn for severance, the longer it takes the better. I am, at most, a minimal contributor any more. My manager leaves me alone, my project is BS and needs minimal babysitting. It often seems I'm the only one who knows i do (almost) nothing.
I spend more time making it look like I'm needed than i actually spend working.
I'd be concerned with loosing my severance if, like Qlife, my project was at risk of being sold off to another company, with me included in the sale. That isn't possible, i hope, so i will just continue to f___ off daily, collect my pay, rest and vest.
If you wait for severance you will be in the market competing with who knows how many? thousands? of former QC job seekers. That QC resume is going to look like everyone else's.
OP, the only person stopping you is you. Forget about the severance, and focus on negotiating a fat signing bonus with your next company.
Easiest way to get severance is to demonstrate competence. They'll march you out so fast your head will spin.
Not a Q employee, never have been. I had the same situation at another larger tech company. Waited through a few layoffs and despite my higher level position and their focus on "cost cutting", they kept me around. I always, even through the bad times, keep putting out good work and got good reviews. It looked like I was never going to get laid off, so I left on my own. I had 3 offers in 3 weeks and decided to cut ties rather than wait until I would get the "big package" (which would probably happen in a bad market). I wish I had done it sooner.
If you are unhappy and have no long term vision to stay, leave and start a new path. Is it really worth it for a payout that will probably incur 40-45% taxes anyhow?
Same boat
Want to leave with severance.
Waiting but meanwhile making sure my skillsets are upto date and I go to gym regularly