Hardware Engineer Interview Experience - San Diego, California
October 1, 2011
Neutral ExperienceNo Offer
Process
The interview process involved one phone interview, followed by an onsite interview with seven individuals. The questions covered a range of topics, including using MUX to design logic gates, verification problems, coding with Verilog and C, and DSP.
Sometimes, I was not required to write complete code, but rather to describe my ideas. As a large company, their requirements were extensive, and some of the questions were difficult. However, as a PhD, I felt it was not the most effective way to assess my skills, as they asked many general ASIC design questions. I believe I could perform better with more specific professional questions related to my research area.
Questions
Use MUX to design logic gates.
Design a frequency divider circuit.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 13 interview experiences for the Qualcomm Hardware Engineer role in San Diego, California.
Success Rate
31%
Pass Rate
Qualcomm's interview process for their Hardware Engineer roles in San Diego, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive69%
Neutral23%
Negative8%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Qualcomm's Hardware Engineer interview process in San Diego, California.
Qualcomm Work Experiences
4.0
Great People, High Cost
Hardware Engineer • Current Employee
San Diego, California, United States
November 8, 2020
Pros: Great location, benefits, and people.
Cons: Living costs in San Diego are very high.
2.0
Bureaucracy and Politics
Hardware Engineer • Current Employee
San Diego, California, United States
March 10, 2023
Pros: Compensation and benefits are decent.
Cons: There are too many silos and a lack of communication between teams, while at the same time keeping way too many useless meetings. It is hard to make changes, and people are not open to listen to new ideas. There is lots of internal politics and unhealthy competition between teams and locations. In many cases, this yields duplicated solutions and efforts.
2.0
Good Pay, Terrible Politics
Hardware Engineer • Former Employee
San Diego, California, United States
October 29, 2023
Pros: Pay is competitive with tier 2 tech companies.
Excellent benefits:
* 15% discount stock plan with a lookback.
* Fantastic health insurance.
Cons: Regular late night and early morning calls with India. Work-life balance is poor.
Targeted layoffs for employees over age 50. They claim they don't discriminate based on age, but if you look around at who gets laid off every cycle...
Promotion track is extremely political. The promotion from entry-level to journeyman to mid-level is just based on time in seat, but after 10 years' experience, you need to be the right guy's friend to advance.
Management is promoted internally, which means that nearly every manager and director is either a member of the pre-2010 "old boys club" or the winner of the latest departmental cage fight.
Incredible amounts of infighting at the director level. Work teams are sabotaged or outright destroyed by "Game of Thrones" style politics a level above them.
No training path for juniors. They are just expected to figure things out themselves.
Morale is in the toilet. WLB and consistent layoffs have the office feeling like a funeral parlor.
Offshore teams in India are coming for the San Diego workers' jobs, and the SD employees all know it.
Zero innovation. The same products just get recycled over and over again. QCOM is stagnant technologically.
Repetitive work. No real career growth. After staff level, you pretty much either just "rest and vest," or start playing politics to get on the promotion track.
If you join Qualcomm in San Diego, simply plan on being laid off in three to five years. Either you will tick the wrong guy off, your director will tick the wrong guy off, you will age into the danger zone, or an economic downturn will have the C-suite offshoring your job to Bangalore.
- 4.0Great People, High CostHardware Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Diego, California, United StatesNovember 8, 2020Pros: Great location, benefits, and people.Cons: Living costs in San Diego are very high.
- 2.0Bureaucracy and PoliticsHardware Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Diego, California, United StatesMarch 10, 2023Pros: Compensation and benefits are decent.Cons: There are too many silos and a lack of communication between teams, while at the same time keeping way too many useless meetings. It is hard to make changes, and people are not open to listen to new ideas. There is lots of internal politics and unhealthy competition between teams and locations. In many cases, this yields duplicated solutions and efforts.
- 2.0Good Pay, Terrible PoliticsHardware Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Diego, California, United StatesOctober 29, 2023Pros: Pay is competitive with tier 2 tech companies. Excellent benefits: * 15% discount stock plan with a lookback. * Fantastic health insurance.Cons: Regular late night and early morning calls with India. Work-life balance is poor. Targeted layoffs for employees over age 50. They claim they don't discriminate based on age, but if you look around at who gets laid off every cycle... Promotion track is extremely political. The promotion from entry-level to journeyman to mid-level is just based on time in seat, but after 10 years' experience, you need to be the right guy's friend to advance. Management is promoted internally, which means that nearly every manager and director is either a member of the pre-2010 "old boys club" or the winner of the latest departmental cage fight. Incredible amounts of infighting at the director level. Work teams are sabotaged or outright destroyed by "Game of Thrones" style politics a level above them. No training path for juniors. They are just expected to figure things out themselves. Morale is in the toilet. WLB and consistent layoffs have the office feeling like a funeral parlor. Offshore teams in India are coming for the San Diego workers' jobs, and the SD employees all know it. Zero innovation. The same products just get recycled over and over again. QCOM is stagnant technologically. Repetitive work. No real career growth. After staff level, you pretty much either just "rest and vest," or start playing politics to get on the promotion track. If you join Qualcomm in San Diego, simply plan on being laid off in three to five years. Either you will tick the wrong guy off, your director will tick the wrong guy off, you will age into the danger zone, or an economic downturn will have the C-suite offshoring your job to Bangalore.
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