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What It's Like to Work at Apple

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Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#11

Post by JabavuAdams »

Keyframe wrote: post #6
novum wrote: post #5

Secrecy: Apple's secrecy is comparable to the U.S. government's in terms of "need to know" and compartmentalization. This. My roommate is a hardware engineer on the iPad team, and he won't even confirm that there will be another iPad. He takes extra precautions when working at home - he won't take work calls if I'm in the room, and he set up the furniture in his room in an awkward fashion solely so that his computer…

Sounds like a genuine shithole/borderline slavery. Why are people putting up with this?

Think of it as doing a post-grad degree. Games are often like this too. Each one is a masters, but if you do good work, the connections and portfolio can make the rest of your career significantly easier. Plus, you're hopefully working on cool stuff.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#12

Post by ig1 »

borski wrote: post #10
novum wrote: post #5

Secrecy: Apple's secrecy is comparable to the U.S. government's in terms of "need to know" and compartmentalization. This. My roommate is a hardware engineer on the iPad team, and he won't even confirm that there will be another iPad. He takes extra precautions when working at home - he won't take work calls if I'm in the room, and he set up the furniture in his room in an awkward fashion solely so that his computer…

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

And of course if someone doesn't stay later it means they're not dedicated to the product, so obviously aren't suitable for promotion, salary increases, etc.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#13

Post by kenjackson »

borski wrote: post #10
novum wrote: post #5

Secrecy: Apple's secrecy is comparable to the U.S. government's in terms of "need to know" and compartmentalization. This. My roommate is a hardware engineer on the iPad team, and he won't even confirm that there will be another iPad. He takes extra precautions when working at home - he won't take work calls if I'm in the room, and he set up the furniture in his room in an awkward fashion solely so that his computer…

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to.

I hear this from people, but I rarely buy it. I'm not saying that you didn't want to stay later, but say Tim wanted to just work 8 to 5 each day, would everyone say, "Hey that's cool. We feel bad that you can't stay later, but it's 100% fine that you work 8 hours per day"?

It just seems like places I've been, if a handful of sufficiently respected productive members of the team stay late consistently (for whatever reason) there becomes strong social pressure that everyone stay late.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#14

Post by borski »

ig1 wrote: post #12
borski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

And of course if someone doesn't stay later it means they're not dedicated to the product, so obviously aren't suitable for promotion, salary increases, etc.

No, actually, that wasn't usually how it worked. It was all about performance rather than time spent on-site. If you could get done in 4 hours what took me 8, you would be just as eligible for any promotions as I. Probably more-so, however, since you'd probably have worked 8 hours anyway and gotten twice as much done. ;)

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#15

Post by borski »

kenjackson wrote: post #13
borski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. I hear this from people, but I rarely buy it. I'm not saying that you didn't want to stay later, but say Tim wanted to just work 8 to 5 each day, would everyone say, "Hey that's cool. We feel bad that you can't stay later, but it's 100% fine that you work 8 hours per day"? It just seems like places I've been, if a handful of sufficiently respected produ…

At least in my (admittedly short) experience there, I can't say there was much social pressure to stay late. You had deadlines, you had to do what you had to get done, and it had to be done well. How long it took you to get there or at what times of day didn't matter very much, if at all.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#16

Post by Keyframe »

novum wrote: post #7
Keyframe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a genuine shithole/borderline slavery. Why are people putting up with this?

Because he's designing the next iPad. Several people on his team have left Apple for very lucrative careers as designers and engineers at hardware or design firms. It's a phenomenal boost to your career.

That's a valid point though. Somehow I confused him as someone senior, since you've said "designing the next iPad" - but then you've said roommate, which does not compute.

Then again, something else does not compute in this story. If I were Apple and were about talked-about level of secrecy, I sure wouldn't let people that are designing key products easily let go. On the other hand, if people that were involved in the process, but were not all that important, how lucrative would they be to the competition (since they weren't key in the process - so no lucrative know-how)?

edit: I apologize for word mess - I have a headache.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#17

Post by Keyframe »

kenjackson wrote: post #13
borski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. I hear this from people, but I rarely buy it. I'm not saying that you didn't want to stay later, but say Tim wanted to just work 8 to 5 each day, would everyone say, "Hey that's cool. We feel bad that you can't stay later, but it's 100% fine that you work 8 hours per day"? It just seems like places I've been, if a handful of sufficiently respected produ…

I worked in several situations like this - it is toxic. Where overachievers dragged all of the others into slavery (I used to do that too, until I realized what I was doing).

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#18

Post by nostromo »

smiler wrote: post #2

Would be great if he had expanded on the 'no career path' section - that will probably be something that most people want to know about - surely there must be different levels of developers to some extent? Moving from development to management? Any Apple employees on here like to comment?

The way he mentions that Apple HR confirms that there are 'no career paths' at Apple makes me think he's referring to a more regimented promotion system (a la GE).

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#19

Post by InclinedPlane »

borski wrote: post #10
novum wrote: post #5

Secrecy: Apple's secrecy is comparable to the U.S. government's in terms of "need to know" and compartmentalization. This. My roommate is a hardware engineer on the iPad team, and he won't even confirm that there will be another iPad. He takes extra precautions when working at home - he won't take work calls if I'm in the room, and he set up the furniture in his room in an awkward fashion solely so that his computer…

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

An honest question:

Why do you want to work such long days when there is so much evidence that total productive work per week doesn't increase beyond around 40 hours of work for most knowledge worker jobs, especially software development?

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#20

Post by borski »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #19
borski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern), I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline, that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed. As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed w…

An honest question: Why do you want to work such long days when there is so much evidence that total productive work per week doesn't increase beyond around 40 hours of work for most knowledge worker jobs, especially software development?

I find that I have significantly more than 40 hours of usefulness in any given week. I almost never work 9-5 M-F. I usually show up later, and stay later; in my experience, I feel most awake later in the day and do my best work later as well. Occasionally, if I'm working on a problem, I can get a lot more (efficient) work done keeping at it rather than leaving and having to spin up again on it.

At other times, of course, leaving is the only way to clear my head and find a solution. It all really depends on your working habits; mine just don't tend to be very consistent. :)

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