It appears to me from levels.fyi that in Canada, engineers at QCOM make considerably more than engineers at AMD: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/qualcomm/salaries/software-engineer/levels/senior-engineer/locations/greater-toronto-area https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amd/salaries/software-engineer/levels/mts/locations/greater-toronto-area?offset=10 I am not sure if I am reading the data correctly. I see lots of talented engineers working at AMD for decades and it makes no sense for them to stay at AMD when they can do the same kind of work at QCOM and earn considerably more money. Also, I see employees moving back-and-forth between QCOM and AMD. If QCOM Markham is so much better, why return to AMD? #tech #salary #tc
For hardware, Qualcomm in Markham is a small site and doesn’t have enough variety of positions types. AMD office there is massive in comparison, and being RTG center (former ATI) it has a full spectrum of employees in various fields of silicon design. If you’re a senior level engineer and want to work on massive SoCs in a big company with state of the art flows and cutting edge tech, your only other option besides AMD Markham is to move to the US, or work remotely for a US-based team. A lot of people don’t want to leave Canada since they have family ties and comfortable enough lives. Those who are chasing high salary either already left long time ago when AMD was not doing well, had competing offers and didn’t join AMD in the first place, or are actively leaving for higher paying jobs in companies other than Qualcomm (i.e. higher tier companies) if they are frustrated enough and could pass the interviews. The longer someone stays, the more lazy and complacent they get. If I were leaving AMD, I would only go to Qualcomm out of necessity, or if they offer an unusual hike in TC and position jump. You generally need a company to exceed several years of AMD RSU grants with a sign-on and initial RSU grant. Only Apple, Google, Meta, AWS, NVIDIA and Broadcom can do that. The moment AMD management realizes that I in LTI only works if you give a competitive amount of stocks and not 🥜 the attrition will drop dramatically, because a lot of other things are either great or perfect.
Thanks for the thorough response. So you are saying QCOM Markham cannot offer anything that would compel an AMD Markham employee to join QCOM Markham? You spoke of RSU grants but isn't that for people who have already been at AMD for a while. What about people who have been at AMD for 3 years or less? Are you saying that even for these junior employees, QCOM Markham compensation is not better than AMD?
Also, what makes you suggest QCOM Markham wouldn't pay significantly more than AMD Markham if you decide to switch? The levels.fyi data seems to indicate QCOM Markham pays considerably more as I indicated in my question
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It's true in US as well. QCOM pays more than AMD.
Hmm...why then do people move back and forth between QCOM and AMD? I don't see people working at Apple or NVIDIA wondering if they should take a job offer from AMD. Why then do QCOM employees consider working at AMD, if QCOM is better?
It depends. Not everyone at QCOM make good $$. Core teams @QCOM pay more than non-core teams. Also, people who have stayed in a company for a long time will surely benefit from changing companies (most of the time). Also, not everyone is motivated by TC. Some may be motivated to find a good team/work/WLB..