Pros: Job Stability (San Diego can be good or bad). Good technical work if you are willing to work hard. Benefits.

Cons: Salary: Was offered lower than some start-ups. HR plays hardball and leaves no room for negotiation. Ended up getting 6k more than originally quoted. You tend to start off with unhappy employees. Bonuses are probably the industry's lowest. Team dynamics: Every group has its own kind of politics. Usually, it will involve middle management, who does nothing but manage. Most of these people lack the technical skills to remain in the company, but due to an extremely bad review process, they will linger on. Most of the middle management is content to manage up and give more work to people under them. So, most of the engineers leave after 2-3 years. Bad talent sticks around.

Pros: - Learn a lot initially. - San Diego is a great place to live.

Cons: - Limited career growth: If you request a different project after completing your current assignment, you are discouraged and given boring tasks. - Expected to work on one project and only one project for the entire duration at Qualcomm. - Lots of politics: People take credit for work you do, and ask for help behind directors/VPs. - Line management: Your review, bonus, and raise are determined by a third party whom you see only during the review period. Your manager/tech lead has very little impact during the bonus/promotion meetings. - Compensation is very low compared to salaries in the Bay Area. San Diego is not that much cheaper to live. - New innovation in hardware only. As a software engineer, you will only be responsible for bug fixes and hacks; the hardware and system teams will reincorporate them into the next design. - No culture: No team-building events, no company events. Teams are very distant; everyone is doing their own thing. Team members don't even eat lunch together most of the time! In the three years I have been here, my team has only had one team-building event, and there have only been two company events (one for a 25-year anniversary).

Pros: Good company. Challenging work. Great products.

Cons: Hierarchical management. Work-life balance.