Qualcomm

I have worked at many of the peer companies, Broadcom, etc. None even come close to QCOM in terms of the resources that they provide to the employee in terms of continuous learning, training, mentoring by world-renowned experts, and brainstorming as part of an expert team. The engineering rigor in anything like design reviews, chip tape-out reviews, and customer issue triages bests other competitors very easily.

Plus, the benefits are incomparable: no co-pays for PPO health care, EAP resources, and greatly subsidized movie tickets, etc. For such a large company, decisions are taken mostly right, and the dividends have paid off.

As many have noted, work hours at QCT tend to be extremely long (though in reality not as bad as some of the other competitor semiconductor companies) and you will be stretched to the maximum unless you push back.

However, it must be said that when you face family issues as a result of the work pressure that were piled on previously, the company does respond in a very caring fashion to you (at least my manager did) and gives you all the time you want to sort out your personal life.

Ultimately, I did make a decision to leave QCOM to take up a job in another city for serious family issues, and I was touched that even the VP talked to me for three days continuously to persuade me to stay and even offered me to work remotely. I would have stayed back had my personal situation not arisen.

Also, promotions are super-slow. From Staff Engineer upwards, even with good performance, it can be very frustrating to see yourself not get promoted.

The company is very top-heavy now, and management knows it. People who joined in the last 7 to 8 years do not get promoted, as there is no space upwards. But otherwise, keep the good job up.