NDA?
This comment probably has one of the highest upvote-to-character-length ratios in HN history.
Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
61–70 of 99 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Second rule of Apple: one button and no more. If you need more, just use the on-screen buttons.
I actually understood the one-button mouse idea recently. It forces software developers to try not to hide all the useful features behind right-click menus, but figure out how to consistently lead a user to where they want to go. User Story: My wifi wasn't working on my windows laptop the other day, I knew there was some nice "troubleshoot network" button, but I could not find it for the life of me every time i click…
> It forces software developers to try not to hide all the useful features
except that in the Mac you can option-click, which is even more complicated than a right click. There is always a way to make features obscure, if you want to.
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#63The first rule of Fight Club?
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#64I interviewed with Apple last year, and I wasn't asked to sign an NDA. That said, I didn't actually see anything that would have required one. I didn't apply to Apple - they found me. A year later, I'm still not sure how that happened, since I don't know anyone there. It could have been through a public talk about user experience that I gave (the position was for UX director of the Apple web site), it might have been…
My experiences were similar. I had several interviews with Apple:
1) Several phone interviews for an internship. They don't do fly outs for internships, if I remember correctly. I never finished this process because I took another position before the interviews were complete.
2) Phone interviews and fly out for a position about 1 year ago. The team had good things to say about me, but it wasn't a good fit for either myself or that team. I was referred to another part of Apple, where I started over.
3) Phone interviews and fly out for a different position just one week after #2. In a spat of horrible luck, I lost my contact lens at the hotel that morning. I decided that a makeshift eyepatch wouldn't look good, but having only 1 contact lens in gave me a splitting headache. As I struggled more than I should have, I felt them grow more cold. I was kindly told that the interviews were over about 3/4 of the way through.
Similar to jaysonelliot, I didn't sign an NDA and didn't leave the interview room except for lunch.
A few notable things about my interviews:
I was asked to code over the phone. That's much harder than white board coding, in my opinion. It was something fairly easy, though (atoi in c, or something like that).
I felt like I was judged on my Apple culture. When I revealed that I didn't know Objective C, that didn't seem to matter to much, but when I revealed that I didn't own an iPhone or a Mac, I did feel that my answers weren't what they were hoping.
The questions were very broad. Because I come from both a hardware and a software background, I was asked about everything from basic power dissipation to more traditional CS topics.
Honestly, I felt a much more happy and welcome atmosphere at Microsoft, which surprised me. It was kind of the opposite of the consumer perspectives of those companies.
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#65The first rule of Fight Club?
"No smoking."
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#66Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#67My first guess would be respect for the company. Secondarily, plenty of results in google reveal that the policy (if somewhat unofficially) is that you can say you work at Apple on your blog, etc, but not really blog /about/ Working At Apple. Even if there's no official policy on it, it's just better taste to say "The thoughts of John Doe" and not represent oneself as "John Doe of Apple." "There's a PR department for…
Interesting, I never realised that Rands works at Apple...
Worked, according to WP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rands
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I have close, personal friends who went to work at Apple. The last time I talked to one of them, they started getting visibly nervous just talking about the breakfast they had at the on-campus cafe. Not what it cost, or what it was, but even that it existed. I quickly changed the topic.
Sounds like your friend suffers from bizarre paranoia or acute social anxiety. (See how I can just make stuff up too?) Having been invited multiple times by friends to Infinite Loop for lunch and dinner, and debated the quality of the food vs Google's with them (Google still wins on that front), I can safely say that nobody at Apple gives a shit if employees talk about the cafe. The Gizmodo article is pretty much bul…
"(See how I can just make stuff up too?)"
Unfortunately, I didn't make up my post. Your reply is just as interesting without peppering in a baseless accusation.
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#69I worked at Apple EMEIA for a year and, truth be told, the interview process there depends.
It depends on where you want to work. If it's in Cupertino I'm told it's a completely different story to the EMEIA office. Having worked there, I can vouch for there really being a culture of absolute secrecy. It's quite common for one team to not know what's going on in the other corner of the room with another team. Secrecy has gotten even more prevalent in the EMEIA office (the office being made up of project managers alone, it was formerly less secretive than Apple World Wide/Cupertino) since the Gizmodo iPhone 4 affair. As regards fear related to Apple's security paranoia? It was moreover regarded as an irritation.
Going back to the interview process at Apple EMEIA (I can't say for Apple WW), it depends entirely upon who interviews you, which team, for what role, and what level. There is no set pattern. There may be an NDA for the interview process, there may not. It depends on the role and the person you are seeing. I know some who've had only two interviews, some who've had nine. It depends.
Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like your friend suffers from bizarre paranoia or acute social anxiety. (See how I can just make stuff up too?) Having been invited multiple times by friends to Infinite Loop for lunch and dinner, and debated the quality of the food vs Google's with them (Google still wins on that front), I can safely say that nobody at Apple gives a shit if employees talk about the cafe. The Gizmodo article is pretty much bul…
"(See how I can just make stuff up too?)" Unfortunately, I didn't make up my post. Your reply is just as interesting without peppering in a baseless accusation.
My apologies!
Your friend's reaction was just plain absurd, unless he/she was playing a joke on you.