Stimulating work environment, smart colleagues, great benefits and work/life balance - but big company growth blues - Senior Staff Engineer Qualcomm Employee Review

5.0
12 Mar 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working at Qualcomm (in particular in the San Diego headquarters) offers great learning from all sources everyday - colleagues, countless seminars, technology fairs, etc. Excellent work culture for the most part, good employees are respected and rewarded.

Cons

Qualcomm has grown to be a large company, in particular in the last 10 years. The work culture and growth potential have, naturally, evolved accordingly. This means: (1) Although the company is innovating in multiple new technology areas, in most parts of the company, innovation is recognized and rewarded only in the more traditional (3G, 4G) technologies. (2) Qualcomm has become a very top heavy company. Due to the incumbents who started in the company early, and never left, low outside opportunities in the San Diego area, and simply the company being a great place to work, the layer of SVPs and VPs is huge. (3) There is a good chance that younger and very talented engineers will be (are) frustrated, as promotions are, to a great extent, a slave of "protocol", which is applied in equal measure to everyone - regardless of talent. ("Although you're outstanding, we cannot promote you in two years because on average it takes four, etc.").

Explore other reviews about Qualcomm

5.0
13 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work life balance is really good, colleagues are both kind and techinical

Cons

Pay salary range is medium

4.0
27 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great design team. Learn a lot in the project. Great resources for self motivated technical improvement.

Cons

Big wave of talented engineers leaving in some critical departments. CEO lacks responsibility on the company development. CEO and CFO have been selling their stocks a lot every year.

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