Pros
Employs lots of dedicated, talented engineers. Easygoing corporate environment.. Lots of opportunities and support for training. BENEFITS: Fully sponsored medical benefits; above average workout facilities; promotes work-life balance; free vending machine beverages; sponsored lunch if you must attend meetings during the noon hour; elegant corporate parties; competitive pay. Bonus/Merit possibilities every 6 months. Acceptable to run errands or be out of the office for personal reasons when necessary.
Cons
Working on weekends expected depending upon project. Lack of confidence in some sales teams to win business and keep staff busy. Performance evaluations during review periods are distracting, consume lots of time, and do not always reflect individual contributors' achievements and value-add to the group. It pays to be in the right group with the right influential group leader; otherwise, your extra compensation is up in the air. Some divisions (QCT) within Qualcomm have NEVER had a workforce reduction/layoff. Others (QIS) have them regularly, and they happen just under the number required by federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act Guide to Advance Notice of Closings and Layoffs (i.e. you won't hear about the layoff in the news, but they do happen). Divisional leadership is clearly the reason. Senior Management Feedback: - not very approachable despite offer of having a 'door always open' - large delays in communicating important changes like reorganization to the team. It is highly likely that others outside the group will know before you do - some are vindictive; stay on their good side and you will be ok. cross or upset them then your career will be an endless uphill climb - some Directors spend an unusually large amount of time out of the office, coming in late and leaving early and ironically make comments on how it's unacceptable for engineers to come in late or leave early - decision-making by upper management has been dicey. employees pay for those bad decisions with tight deadlines and risky schedules - used current economic situation to inappropriately motivate/threaten employees to stay late and work harder - layoffs have led to very overloaded and stressed out team members. lots of work to do with less people, with no help in sight aside from temporary contractors