Qualcomm

Working at Qualcomm, particularly in the San Diego headquarters, offers great learning opportunities from all sources every day – colleagues, countless seminars, technology fairs, etc. The work culture is excellent for the most part, and good employees are respected and rewarded.

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:

• 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.

• 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.

• There is a good chance that younger and very talented engineers will be 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.")

Qualcomm's executive leadership should try to develop a systematic and disciplined view of future technology strategy. The company should invest in diversifying into innovation in areas non-traditional to its core competence. It should do so in a way that the new projects can be successfully brought to market and monetized.