careerladder.fyi › Career paths › Qualcomm
How people got jobs at Qualcomm
What 71 people did before they joined Qualcomm: where they worked, what they studied, which role they came in through, and how long it took.
71
people in our data got there
69%
had a graduate degree first (of those listing one)
11
typical years since first job
- The most common step right before: from other companies (66%).
- The most common way in was Software engineering (32% joined in that kind of role).
- Of those who list their education, 69% had a graduate degree before arriving and 25% a PhD.
- The typical person arrived about 11 years after their first job.
- The most common earlier employer: Intel Corporation (15% had worked there).
How Qualcomm compares
- 25% had a PhD, above the 11% across other banks & Fortune 500 companies, the highest of the 15 in our data.
- 69% had a graduate degree, well above the 53% across other banks & Fortune 500 companies, the highest of the 15 in our data.
- People arrived about 3 years later in their careers than at the typical one of the other banks & Fortune 500 companies (11 vs 8 years since their first job).
Among people who list their education; places with at least 10 such people.
Show as a table
| People listing education | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm (this page) | 36 | 69% |
| Morgan Stanley | 16 | 62% |
| Intel Corporation | 49 | 61% |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprise | 36 | 61% |
| Micron Technology | 25 | 60% |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 20 | 55% |
| AMD | 26 | 54% |
| Dell Technologies | 30 | 53% |
| IBM | 60 | 53% |
| Goldman Sachs | 20 | 50% |
| Citi | 16 | 50% |
| Cisco | 43 | 49% |
| NextEra Energy, Inc. | 41 | 49% |
| Deutsche Bank | 16 | 38% |
| Schneider Electric | 28 | 32% |
Show as a table
| Median years | ||
|---|---|---|
| AMD | 20 yrs | |
| NextEra Energy, Inc. | 19 yrs | |
| Micron Technology | 16 yrs | |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprise | 15 yrs | |
| Cisco | 13 yrs | |
| Qualcomm (this page) | 11 yrs | |
| Schneider Electric | 11 yrs | |
| Dell Technologies | 9 yrs | |
| Intel Corporation | 8 yrs | |
| Citi | 7 yrs | |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 6 yrs | |
| Morgan Stanley | 5 yrs | |
| IBM | 5 yrs | |
| Deutsche Bank | 5 yrs | |
| Goldman Sachs | 4 yrs |
Which role they joined in
Kinds of role with fewer than 5 people are combined into "All other roles".
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Software engineering | 23 | 32% |
| All other roles | 31 | 44% |
| Data science & ML | 10 | 14% |
| Technical leadership | 7 | 10% |
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Engineer | 6 | 8% |
What they did right before
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| From other companies | 47 | 66% |
| From banks & Fortune 500 | 14 | 20% |
| Publishing research | 7 | 10% |
| Other | 3 | 4% |
Where they worked before
A person can count under more than one employer.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Corporation | 11 | 15% |
Education
Among the 36 of 71 people who list their education.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's | 11 | 31% |
| Master's | 15 | 42% |
| MBA | 1 | 3% |
| PhD | 9 | 25% |
How much experience they had
Among the 68 of 71 people with an earlier job listed.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 1 | 1% |
| 1-3 years | 7 | 10% |
| 3-5 years | 8 | 12% |
| 5-8 years | 7 | 10% |
| 8-12 years | 12 | 18% |
| 12+ years | 33 | 49% |
Where would your path lead?
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Qualcomm, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Qualcomm →
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Qualcomm, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Qualcomm →
Related
How these numbers are made. From 3k+ public career histories collected for careerladder.fyi (dated jobs, degrees and publications). The collection was built around particular employers, so people who reached well-known tech, AI and finance employers are over-represented: read shares as "among people in this dataset", not as hiring odds. Names are shown only when at least 5 people are behind them; smaller groups are combined into "Other". No individual profile is shown. Updated November 2026.