They are building their own 5G modem in house and intentionally setup shop here to poach talent from Qualcomm. They already have an ARM solution on the phone and it’s just a matter of time before they move that over to the laptop and desktop and cut x86 out. Most of these jobs will probably be chip design jobs, though probably some supporting embedded SW jobs will open up too.
Google is doing the same thing. They are here also, you just don’t hear too much about them, but they are also working on 5G modem an an internal SoC to my understanding, and they have been poaching folks from Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Intel.
Intel is already out here in Rancho Bernardo trying to poach people from Qualcomm and former Broadcom (folks call them the leftover engineers)
On top of that Amazon is expanding their footprint, and Walmart Labs just added a large footprint in Carlsbad right next to the GoPro office.
Qualcomm employs roughly 13,000 people in San Diego, so there’s plenty of lateral movements that can happen. even if local talent is already limited, that’s ok… I am sure there are plenty of people in the Bay Area that would gladly move back to San Diego after moving there for opportunity. I already have a few buddies checking the opportunity. When you get paid an top comp package of $300k as an engineer up there and still have problems finding housing…you end up working there 3-4 years and GTF out of there and move back here, laughing all the way to the bank. And now, they will have opportunity awaiting.
Great news for tech workers that will have even more choice and better pay. Bad news for startups that want to try to get away with paying peanuts for a hairbrain idea….No one works for free..Things are looking pretty swell in the tech community here. At least for now for workers….Probably also good news for landlords and property owners near the tech hubs here Carlsbad, Sorrento Valley, RB, and to a lesser extent, downtown.
