Qualcomm

Staff Engineer Interview Experience - San Diego, California

March 1, 2011

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

My interview with Qualcomm was about seven years ago. It was a two-step process. First, I had a phone interview with questions on basic software engineering principles and past projects. Then, I was brought in for an on-site interview. It was a whole-day interview with five engineers at different levels.

All involved white-board C programming and design, except for the lunch interview, which was a programming exercise on a napkin. Overall, the experience was intense but pleasant.

Questions

Forget most of the exact questions, but they were mostly related to C and low-level programming.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 14 interview experiences for the Qualcomm Staff Engineer role in San Diego, California.

Success Rate

79%

Pass Rate

Qualcomm's interview process for their Staff Engineer roles in San Diego, California is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.

Experience Rating

Positive79%

Neutral7%

Negative14%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Qualcomm's Staff Engineer interview process in San Diego, California.

Qualcomm Work Experiences

Cutting-edge Pay, Poor Balance

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

September 18, 2016

Pros: Good pay and cutting-edge technology.

Cons: Work-life balance may not be possible. Not everyone's cup of tea to work as part of a semiconductor team.

Cutting-edge Pay, Poor Balance

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

September 18, 2016

Pros: Good pay and cutting-edge technology.

Cons: Work-life balance may not be possible. Not everyone's cup of tea to work as part of a semiconductor team.

Great Perks, Political Culture

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

October 7, 2015

Pros: Awesome Company. Great policies and privileges, best-in-class benefits, great amenities, flexible hours.

Cons: Highly competitive. Most people are political. If you don’t have good lead, or your lead is biased, your career is at stake. Many good performers are impacted in the layoff process. There are lot of overlapped responsibilities.

Great Perks, Political Culture

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

October 7, 2015

Pros: Awesome Company. Great policies and privileges, best-in-class benefits, great amenities, flexible hours.

Cons: Highly competitive. Most people are political. If you don’t have good lead, or your lead is biased, your career is at stake. Many good performers are impacted in the layoff process. There are lot of overlapped responsibilities.

Great company, but it's losing direction

Staff Engineer • Former Employee

San Diego, California, United States

January 20, 2016

Pros: Incredibly bright peers, interesting technology.

Cons: Stifling, soul-sucking, endless, oppressive politics.

Great company, but it's losing direction

Staff Engineer • Former Employee

San Diego, California, United States

January 20, 2016

Pros: Incredibly bright peers, interesting technology.

Cons: Stifling, soul-sucking, endless, oppressive politics.

Cutting-edge Pay, Poor Balance

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

September 18, 2016

Pros: Good pay and cutting-edge technology.

Cons: Work-life balance may not be possible. Not everyone's cup of tea to work as part of a semiconductor team.

4.0
Cutting-edge Pay, Poor Balance
Staff Engineer • Current Employee
San Diego, California, United States
September 18, 2016
Pros: Good pay and cutting-edge technology.
Cons: Work-life balance may not be possible. Not everyone's cup of tea to work as part of a semiconductor team.

Great Perks, Political Culture

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

San Diego, California, United States

October 7, 2015

Pros: Awesome Company. Great policies and privileges, best-in-class benefits, great amenities, flexible hours.

Cons: Highly competitive. Most people are political. If you don’t have good lead, or your lead is biased, your career is at stake. Many good performers are impacted in the layoff process. There are lot of overlapped responsibilities.

5.0
Great Perks, Political Culture
Staff Engineer • Current Employee
San Diego, California, United States
October 7, 2015
Pros: Awesome Company. Great policies and privileges, best-in-class benefits, great amenities, flexible hours.
Cons: Highly competitive. Most people are political. If you don’t have good lead, or your lead is biased, your career is at stake. Many good performers are impacted in the layoff process. There are lot of overlapped responsibilities.

Great company, but it's losing direction

Staff Engineer • Former Employee

San Diego, California, United States

January 20, 2016

Pros: Incredibly bright peers, interesting technology.

Cons: Stifling, soul-sucking, endless, oppressive politics.

3.0
Great company, but it's losing direction
Staff Engineer • Former Employee
San Diego, California, United States
January 20, 2016
Pros: Incredibly bright peers, interesting technology.
Cons: Stifling, soul-sucking, endless, oppressive politics.

Qualcomm Interview Questions

String Compression III

You are given a string and a budget for removing characters. Your goal is to compress the string as much as possible after removing at most k characters. Find the length of the shortest possible compressed string.

Maximum Number of Ones

You are given dimensions of a grid and constraints on the number of cells you can select and the maximum side length of a selected square. Find the maximum number of ones you can cover by selecting squares within the grid.

Greedy Algorithms

Reverse Linked List

You are given the head of a singly linked list. Reverse the list and return the new head.

Linked ListsRecursion

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