The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Qualcomm (San Diego, CA) in Dec 2009
Interview
Applied through their website and got an email from recruiter a couple of days later. She arranged a phone interview with the group leader and two engineers at the same time. They asked a bit about my experience, a few C++ questions and some very basic unix shell command questions - I did not expect for such basic questions.
After a few days I was invited for an onsite interview with this group. I had 10 1:1 interviews plus HR at the end of the day. My interview was scheduled for 8:30 with HR, but he did not show up. Started 1:1 interviews with engineers at 9:30.
Most questions where about C++, software engineering practices, networks (TCP/UDP). There were a few of those annoying trick questions. I got to talk about some of my projects with a few of the engineers, which then asked about some specifics.
In the interview with the group leader he described at a high level the project that the position was for, and emphasized that work may get hard often - many releases and pressure. He warned me about that many times as my previous employer dealt with research projects and didn't have as many hard deadlines.
More than a month passed without any feedback and any refunds from my expenses during the trip - not very professional of them. Overall it was good for me to see how I did not fit in that group. The vast majority of engineers are from the same country, and I prefer a bit more diverse group. Also most of them look very tired, which is not a good sign.
Benefits seemed to be very good and location can't get any better. Maybe I'll try a position with another group at QC.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Qualcomm in May 2025
Interview
3 technical rounds first one was to implement BST from scratch but in multiple stages. like those in codesignals without any autocomplete. 2nd round was also related to BST where you need to find rightmost left node. i dont remember third one.
The interviewing was quite smooth but the interview process, where we try to reach out to the HR for future communications was a hassle. I had to reach out for at least 2 weeks before I was presented with the next steps, and apparently the interviewing progress was also not updated. Apart from that I enjoyed meeting the team and discussing mutual goals.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a problem (let's say developing and deploying of ML model), how would you approach to deploying on edge device (like a smartphone)?
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Qualcomm
Interview
Applied online through their website. Was contacted after more than 1 month (reasonable for a company this big).
1) First phone interview with a senior engineer. Everything went smooth, we had a good chat about the position and the roles.
2) Second phone interview with another engineer from a different team. Again everything went smooth.
3) On-site interview. Met the team in Europe and had a nice chat with them. Everyone was friendly.
The overall process was very smooth and very well handed by HR. Overall a very pleasing job interview experience.
All questions were deeply technical and related to my position, no whiteboard coding, quizz, complex (and mostly useless) algorithm questions or other useless stuff like this. I always appreciate a job interview where they try to actively assess your skills, and not how much you remember from your university degree. I hope more and more companies follow this. Thanks Qualcomm.
Received a very good offer, but I did not accept because I had another one which was more on track with my aspirations as an engineer vs researcher.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Cannot disclose questions. Just know your stuff about engineering and security.