I applied in-person. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Qualcomm (San Diego, CA) in Apr 2010
Interview
I had an interview with 6 different person on the same day... (45 min each) So get ready for 5-6 hours of interview...
The interview process started with a person from HR. Introduced me the company and the interview program and the details like procedure for hiring. Than the real interview started with 5 engineers one by one.
They questioned my programming skills asked for simple programs in C/C++. Asked every detail on my CV.
They even asked me to explain every project I did during my education life. Be prepared to present your work in the interview.
They also asked questions from areas that you are not familiar and wanted to come up with an idea or solution to the problem. Be open minded and take your time to think...
I had several phone interviews with Qualcomm for their embedded firmware engineer positions but failed to score an on-site one mostly because I wasn't very prepared for their technical questions. So make sure you got the basics down before applying. As much as I remember, those interview questions cover lots of C fundamentals such as pointers, function pointers and function calls, as well as other computer science knowledge. Good luck!