Taro Logo

Learn and grow, or you will be miserable

Staff Verification Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Qualcomm for 1 year
March 25, 2014
Raleigh, North Carolina
5.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Amazing Work Culture and Great Career Opportunities at Qualcomm.

For the semiconductor industry, I would rate this as the best company to work for, especially if you are an ASIC design/verification or hardware engineer.

Awesome benefits, pretty much cover everything.

The engineering talent we have is second to none, but comes with a caveat: you will have to keep up with the best.

Training and classes of all sorts for learning, or just go and stand in any engineer's office (make an apt, though) and they will spend hours sharing their knowledge.

Qualcomm has the best engineers who will help you learn and grow!

People here love what they do, and usually, if you even have like a 50% interest in what you are doing, you will really enjoy working at Qualcomm.

Generous vacation policy and work policy is pretty flexible as long as you get the job done.

Cons

The first couple of years are the toughest, and you should be ready to work crazy hours. But once you are up to speed, it gets easier, and you can dictate your schedule. Expectations will be high, but with all the help available, you should be fine. If you want to grow, you will have to take the initiative, as Qualcomm thrives on personal responsibility. If you do not drive your growth, you will not enjoy working here and will be miserable soon enough. Like with any big organization, there is cross-functional politics, but usually, engineers are spared from most of the carnage. Work hours can get quite out of whack because a lot of work is done across sites around the world. Lots of meetings.

Advice to Management

Instead of hiring thousands of contractors, why not attract select senior-level engineers and develop the intellectual property? Currently, I see lots of good engineers working as contractors and then leaving for better opportunities. I understand contractors are needed for payroll flexibility, but I feel Qualcomm is now overdoing it.

Was this helpful?

Qualcomm Interview Experiences