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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

#51

Post by aaronblohowiak »

ig1 wrote: post #35
borski wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially, but promotions are generally given for work that exceeds expectations; isn't this the way it should be? Producing the 'minimal expected' amount of work for a prolonged period of time (reliability) is cause for being promoted as well, I suppose, but takes more time.

Sure, I'm not disputing that, but it means that if you want to be treated like everyone else when it comes to promotions, redundancies, etc. that you're forced to work 12 hour days when at other companies you could just work 8 hour days to get equal treatment. And remember while you like your job now, what happens if you start to like it less (or you have a family, etc.) but you can't reduce your hours otherwise you'…

productive workaholics will get rewarded over regular competent staff; overlooking their contribution is a good way to lose them. as an employer, would you want to lose your most productive staff so you can give "equal" treatment to less productive members?

That being said, i think there should be no exemptions for overtime pay.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#52

Post by hyperbovine »

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…

Glad to hear it's not just me! I've got a couple friends working there too, the 007 shtick gets a bit droll sometimes.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#53

Post by jfb »

apike wrote: post #46
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?

Lack of a career path is part of why I left Apple to start my own company. The hierarchy is quite flat, and the departments are quite compartmentalized. Because of this, if you want to move up, you're probably quitting and applying to a new job that also happens to be at Apple. Of course, it was a wonderful place to work in a lot of other ways.

Loads of people leave and come back, too. I knew several.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#55

Post by jlhamilton »

jfb wrote: post #53
apike wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of a career path is part of why I left Apple to start my own company. The hierarchy is quite flat, and the departments are quite compartmentalized. Because of this, if you want to move up, you're probably quitting and applying to a new job that also happens to be at Apple. Of course, it was a wonderful place to work in a lot of other ways.

Loads of people leave and come back, too. I knew several.

I heard about a guy who did this named Steve.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#56

Post by jon_hendry »

jfb wrote: post #39
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?

Almost certainly he's referring to a formal career plan, of which I saw none at Apple. On the other hand, I know many engineers who have made director -- but only by switching gears to management. If you want to stay an individual contributor, you can, but "moving up" at Apple is largely confined to management. There are a handful of DESTs, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.

How does that effect compensation? Do people plateau in compensation because of the lack of formal levels, or is compensation not tied so tightly to your title/# of reports/etc.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#58

Post by jfb »

jon_hendry wrote: post #56
jfb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly he's referring to a formal career plan, of which I saw none at Apple. On the other hand, I know many engineers who have made director -- but only by switching gears to management. If you want to stay an individual contributor, you can, but "moving up" at Apple is largely confined to management. There are a handful of DESTs, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.

How does that effect compensation? Do people plateau in compensation because of the lack of formal levels, or is compensation not tied so tightly to your title/# of reports/etc.

I don't know; they keep that data pretty close to their chest. You wouldn't get up into the eye-watering RSU/option grant territory until you made director, but the engineers (and team leads, &c.) are well compensated. The stock going berserk has changed the equation, of course.

EDIT: Oh, how about I answer the question? Compensation is highly discretionary, so it varies pretty widely. But the real cheese is in equity grants, and those are heavily weighted towards management. A common complaint is that there's no realistic path up out of being an "individual contributor".

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#59

Post by apike »

jfb wrote: post #53
apike wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of a career path is part of why I left Apple to start my own company. The hierarchy is quite flat, and the departments are quite compartmentalized. Because of this, if you want to move up, you're probably quitting and applying to a new job that also happens to be at Apple. Of course, it was a wonderful place to work in a lot of other ways.

Loads of people leave and come back, too. I knew several.

Indeed. Moving up by starting a company and being acquired back into the fold is a great way to go.

Re: What It's Like to Work at Apple

#60

Post by apike »

applerecruit wrote: post #49
apike wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of a career path is part of why I left Apple to start my own company. The hierarchy is quite flat, and the departments are quite compartmentalized. Because of this, if you want to move up, you're probably quitting and applying to a new job that also happens to be at Apple. Of course, it was a wonderful place to work in a lot of other ways.

Apple is trying to hire me to do server side stuff. It's a job that I'm pretty good at, but I'm not very excited about anymore. My thinking was that I could transfer into another group after a year, and it would be easier once I'm "in the system." Given your statement, is it a better idea to just wait until I'm good enough at the stuff I want to do, before applying?

If you're not excited about something, don't do it - even at Apple.
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