Qualcomm

1. Great benefits.
2. Living in San Diego.
3. Relatively high pay for the area.
4. Working with smart and talented people (if you are lucky enough to be on the right team).
5. Seeing your work be commercialized quickly.

1. No matter how much they try to promote this as a plus, there is no work-life balance (at least in QCT).

2. Too much pointless politics – a week of meetings for one line of code.

3. 24/7, seven days a week of stress, since issues are always "urgent" and need to be fixed immediately, no matter the time.

4. Middle management likes to give artificial pressure for no reason.

5. Doesn't always hire the most talented people.

1. Value your employees.

2. Value talent over time spent.

3. Need to cut down on some of the middle management and promote younger, talented engineers quicker.

4. Fire engineers who are not performing up to par.

Even though I listed a lot of cons, Qualcomm was a great place to work, especially for a first job. However, it is not a place where you would want to stay for your career (unless they start some cultural shift).

I received another job offer and didn't think twice about leaving, even though I had high performance review ratings and was slated for a promotion.