If Qualcomm cuts you when notices start in November, recruiters and interviewers will assume it was for performance, because that's the word the company put in the headline. The proof that says otherwise is in your own file, and you can only save it while you still have access.
CEO Cristiano Amon told staff in a memo announced Oct. 20 that the company will cut jobs worldwide in a "performance-focused reduction" following annual employee reviews. Qualcomm hasn't said how many of its roughly 52,000 employees will be affected.
What did Qualcomm actually announce?
Qualcomm announced a global job cut tied to its annual review cycle, but the memo lists more than one criterion: business priorities, organizational needs, and skills and expertise sit next to performance. Notifications begin in November, and the company hasn't disclosed a headcount.
Amon wrote that the cuts would promote "a stronger performance culture" and address situations where the company "has consistently fallen short of expectations." In the same memo he wrote: "As we have expanded the business, so have the competencies and skills we require."
The second line matters more, and the business context explains why:
- As of the week before the memo, Qualcomm stock was up only 1.5% for the year. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up nearly 60%.
- Management is targeting $40 billion in non-handset revenue by fiscal 2029, roughly double its prior goal.
- The company is shifting toward data centers.
A company moving revenue away from handsets needs different skills. If your expertise maps to the part of the business Qualcomm is moving away from, you're exposed whatever your rating says. That's a skills realignment, and the "performance" label covers it too.
Why the "performance" label is not a verdict on you
The label describes how Qualcomm says it chose people, not what's in any one person's file. Past "performance" cuts have landed on people rated "exceeds expectations," so expect the label to be treated as a verdict anyway, and be ready to rebut it with documents.
This has happened before:
- Meta cut roughly 5% of its staff through performance-based terminations after Mark Zuckerberg's January 2025 memo about moving out "low performers," and it planned to hire replacements that same year.
- Kaila Curry, a former Meta content manager, said publicly that she was cut despite an "exceeds expectations" rating on her midyear review.
- Microsoft cut around 1% of jobs across departments in a similar move.
The label spreads through the news, not through HR. Many companies restrict references to confirming employment dates and job titles, so under a neutral-reference policy your former employer is unlikely to repeat the word. The real risk comes from somewhere else:
- The headline. A hiring manager who read "performance-focused" will quietly wonder whether it applies to you.
- You. Nervous candidates bring the word up themselves.
- Unbriefed references. A former colleague who hasn't been prepared may guess out loud.
A saved review that says "exceeds" answers the first problem. For the third, line up references who can speak to your work, ideally a former manager, a peer, and a partner from another team. Brief each one on three facts: the reduction was company-wide, the memo listed skills and business priorities alongside performance, and here's your last rating.
The cuts started before the memo
Qualcomm was cutting jobs months before it called anything "performance-focused." Only the label is new, so a quiet team is not a safe team.
Up from $29 million in the March quarter, according to the company's 10-Q filings.
The filings tell the story:
- Severance-related charges more than doubled from one quarter to the next.
- Qualcomm recognized $97 million of severance-related charges in the first nine months of fiscal 2026.
- It filed twenty California WARN notices in April covering 105 workers.
- The San Diego Union-Tribune's breakdown put about 80% of those April cuts in IT, engineering and cybersecurity.
A WARN notice is the advance filing a state requires before certain layoffs. Qualcomm files them separately for each building, so each filing looks small. Trackers like WhatLayoff and LayoffIQ publish the filings, and reading them together shows the pattern: engineering is already where most of the cuts have landed.
What to save before November notices
Save documents that are about you: your reviews, your ratings, written praise from peers, and personal contact details for your references. Don't save anything that belongs to the company.
Save these while you still have access:
- Your most recent annual review and any midyear review. Note the rating, the date, and your manager's key sentences.
- Written peer feedback. Kudos posts, award citations, and thank-you notes from partner teams.
- Your own results, in numbers you can say out loud. Latency cut, bring-up time shortened, defects closed. Keep them at a level of detail that doesn't reveal confidential product information.
- Personal email and phone numbers for two or three references. Work addresses stop working the day you're cut.
- LinkedIn recommendations, requested now, while you and the person writing them still share a team.
- Your offer letter and promotion letters. These show your title history and when it changed.
Don't save source code, design docs, roadmaps, customer data, or internal decks. Copying confidential material can breach your confidentiality agreement and turn a layoff into a legal dispute. If policy blocks exporting your review, ask HR for a copy or write the rating and key phrases down by hand.
If you're still employed, this is the hardest time of year to look for work. Reviews are being finalized, your manager may be helping draw up the list, and a public "open to work" banner is the last signal you want to send in October. So most people wait for the notice. That costs them the weeks when they still had a paycheck and some leverage.
What if you've already left? The California records request
In California, Labor Code §1198.5 lets current and former employees request a copy of their personnel records, and the employer has 30 calendar days from a written request to comply. Treat it as a backup. It won't replace what you save yourself.
It has real limits:
- Letters of reference are excluded.
- An employer only has to honor one request per year from a former employee.
- It helps with the official file. It does nothing for informal praise in chat or email.
| What you need | Why it matters | Backup if you didn't save it |
|---|---|---|
| Annual and midyear reviews | Direct evidence against the label | §1198.5 personnel records request (California) |
| Letters of reference | Shows someone vouches for you | None. Excluded from §1198.5 |
| Peer feedback and kudos | Praise from someone other than your manager | Ask peers again, if you can reach them |
| Reference contact details | Gets around neutral-reference policies | LinkedIn messages, if they reply |
So the records request recovers the document that matters least to a hiring manager. Collect the praise and the phone numbers yourself, now.
Who you'll be competing with
A global cut puts staff-level semiconductor engineers on the US and Indian job markets at the same time. In Refolk's index of professional profiles, those two pools are nearly the same size, so a title alone won't set you apart.
| Metric (Refolk's index) | United States | India |
|---|---|---|
| Staff and senior staff semiconductor engineer profiles | 55 | 48 |
| "Staff Engineer" as exact title (sample of 25) | 14 (56%) | 14 (56%) |
| "Senior Staff Engineer" (sample of 25) | 6 (24%) | 5 (20%) |
| Top hub | California, 14 of 25 (56%) | Bengaluru area, 11 of 25 (44%) |
| Top current employer in sample | Atheros Communications (4) | Ignitarium (14) |
The counts are small, so read them as a direction, not a census. Even so:
- The US pool is only 1.15 times the size of India's.
- More than half the profiles in each sample carry the exact same "Staff Engineer" title, so the title says almost nothing about the person.
- California holds 56% of the US sample, so a California cut lands in the same state where most of that pool already sits.
- Ignitarium, a semiconductor services firm, accounts for 14 of the 25 profiles in India's sample. Qualcomm isn't a top employer in either country's sample.
When the title is the same for everyone, measurable results are what separate candidates.
How to explain a layoff on your resume
You don't explain it on the resume. List the role, the dates and your results. If anything about the exit needs saying, it goes in the cover letter or the interview, briefly.
If the end date leaves a visible gap, one factual line under the role is fine: "Left in Qualcomm's company-wide reduction, [month, year]." Don't write "role eliminated" unless someone actually told you that. A claim you can't back up does more damage than the layoff.
The bigger fix is vocabulary. Internal product names don't work as skills on a resume.
A small count, but it suggests vendor platform names don't show up as searchable skills.
I'd treat four profiles as a hypothesis, not a finding, but the direction is clear enough to act on: describe the skill underneath the platform. Write "embedded firmware" or "SoC bring-up," then name Snapdragon as the context. A hiring manager at a data-center company is searching for the skill, not for Qualcomm's product name. Refolk handles this rewrite for you: it builds your resume from your own history and tailors it to each posting, so the same Snapdragon work comes out phrased in each job's terms.
Laid off for performance: the interview answer
The best answer to a "laid off for performance" question is short. Start with the date and the fact that the cut was company-wide, quote the criteria from the memo, then move straight to your last rating and a result, and stop talking.
A version that works:
"I was part of Qualcomm's company-wide reduction announced on Oct. 20. The CEO's memo listed skills and business priorities alongside performance, and the company is shifting toward data centers. My last review was 'exceeds expectations,' and the year before that I cut SoC bring-up time on my team's platform."
Then let the interviewer ask the next question.
The label came from a press release. Your answer should come from your file.
If they ask directly whether it was performance, answer truthfully. If you weren't told which criterion applied to you, say so and repeat your rating. If your last review was weak, admit it in one sentence and spend the rest on what you changed and shipped since. Interviewers forgive a mediocre year. They don't forgive finding out you hid one.
The same rule applies in writing. Your cover letter should open with the work, not the exit, and give the layoff one sentence at most.
FAQ
Can Qualcomm tell a new employer I was a low performer?
Many companies restrict references to confirming employment dates and job titles, so a formal reference check usually reveals little. The bigger risk is the "performance-focused" headline and how you talk about it in interviews. Brief your own references, keep your saved review on hand, and don't bring up the word "performance" yourself.
Is it okay to copy my performance review before I'm laid off?
Your own review and rating are about you, unlike source code, roadmaps or customer data, which you shouldn't copy. Still, check your confidentiality agreement and company policy before exporting anything. If exporting is blocked, ask HR for a copy or write the rating and key phrases down by hand. In California, former employees can also request personnel records under Labor Code §1198.5, with a 30-day response window and one request per year.
How can I tell whether my team is at risk?
Look at the filings rather than how quiet your team seems. Qualcomm's severance-related charges rose from $29 million to $68 million between the March and June 2026 quarters, and about 80% of the April California cuts were in IT, engineering and cybersecurity. Trackers like WhatLayoff and LayoffIQ publish its WARN filings. If your skills map to handsets rather than the non-handset push, start saving now.