Well, I just completed my job search and I'll be starting a new job in a much better environment soon. I thought I'd share what I think the current job market in SD looks like.
I don't need to talk about the Bay Area market, because from what I can tell, it's still really hot. So no one should have a problem finding anything in the Bay Area unless you are just grossly incompetent. Here in San Diego, the job market isn't as bad is it seems. You can classify opportunities into 3 categories. For all the Directors and above that aren't hands on and have no good connections with other people, you're really screwed in San Diego. No seriously, most of the employers hiring aren't looking for pure management positions, and if they are, those positions aren't the same level as what is at QC. So if you're one of the unlucky directors or higher that is going to get axed, good luck... For engineers that are staff engineers and below, the job market looks very "competitive", and can probably squeeze a slight bump in your total compensation, particularly if you are in software or IT. Hardware engineers and low level embedded bit flippers can find stuff decent work in medical devices company. If you areaAbove a staff level engineer, you can find a "comparable" job, or slightly less than comparable. The biggest issue is that at other companies, they don't have nearly as many engineering levels, so a lot of the upper levels at the Q ends up getting capped at the staff level. You can try to negotiate with them a bit and make it almost comparable, but it's slightly harder too. In all, the market doesn't look too bad, because there isn't a lot of people actively looking, at least not right now. So if you really want to be sure, you probably want to start early and start looking sooner versus later, and keep in mind what's going on at other companies.
So far no major layoffs from any of our competitors, based on what some of the folks I know in those companies are saying. .Heard from others, Intel in the process of doing layoffs, but most of this is NOT in San Diego. San Diego is the mobility group (LTE + connectivity), which they are trying to ramp up. There is a hiring freeze, but no layoffs (yet) Heard from others, Broadcom's pending merger with Avago has not yet caused any layoffs. Folks there feel that because bulk of the SD Broadcom group is connectivity with virtually no overlap with Avago's portfolio, they think the bulk of the cut will come out of headquarters in Irvine. However, some are concerned that Avago might end up ditching the entire connectivity business, because Avago historically only likes high margin businesses. If that happens, they think it's more likely to be sold to another company, since it's still profitable. No deal will get finalized until late 2015/early 2016, so probably nothing significant this year. Heard from others, Intuit is a good place to go for software. No major plans for a layoff, though their tax group is getting saturated with lower growth and have done some layoffs earlier. They are trying to branch out elsewhere. This might be a good place for folks with mobile application software experience to go, since they've been trying to push into the mobile space for some time. Illumina is on fire right now. If you're doing IT and enterprise software, apparently that's the place you want to go since they are on a hiring binge. Folks there say benefits there is great, and relatively good work/life balance. Walmart in Carlsbad is hiring software engineers. Yes, I know don't laugh. It's part of their massive push into eCommerce to go head to head with Amazon. Personally, I couldn't bring myself to say "I work at Walmart", but hey if you need to find a decent good paying job, it is what it is. If you're flexible in community to Orange County, the doors also significantly open. But you can figure that one out yourself.