<p>Two things:</p>
<p>1) Working at one of the so-called top Silicon Valley firms does not determine an engineer’s career path. There is more than just “Silicon Valley”</p>
<p>2) Even in Silicon Valley, there are more companies than just Google, Cisco, Qualcomm and Intel.</p>
<p>There is more to a career than just to have a conversation piece to say “I work here”. There are companies that are not as known but will pay just as much money and specialize in the same technologies as the more known companies.</p>
<p>Now, if your heart is set in Silicon Valley, the solution is quite simple, You need to either network and/or find other ways for Google, Cisco, Qualcomm, Intel and any other company within the Silicon Valley zipcode to get your resume. I guess your FIRST task is to find out HR information for all the companies in Silicon Valley.</p>