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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#81

Post by busterarm »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #7
sokoloff wrote: post #5

It’s a long, rambling post with some fairly vague and difficult to falsify accusations. I have no connections to Apple (other than as a consumer), but I could not wade through the article enough to determine if I thought there was an actual smoking gun. I suspect the story would be much more powerful if it were 1/5 as long and stuck to the material facts.

Yeah, I wanted to read it more carefully but it seemed to be a long litany of real or perceived psychological abuse. Maybe I too missed a smoking gun. What I read described an Apple that is completely alien to me. I have never seen or even heard of anything even remotely like this team or the behavior described.

I have a friend who recently left Microsoft after a decade and a half. He'd completely drunk the Kool Aid but ended his experience at the company facing more than a year of abuse from a new manager and senior engineer. Very similar to this long post about Apple, unfortunately. He and a couple of other people on his team tried to move to different teams, but despite a long history of excellent work, everyone was treated by the rest of the company like they were toxic waste.

Nobody thinks that their company is like this until they're on the other side of it. In my friend's case, it was only in retrospect that he saw patterns of toxic behavior from management.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#82

Post by karlding »

snickmy wrote: post #75
limono wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What org was that in? IS&T? I am thinking that this story by OP was in IS&T because that is known to be the worst org in Apple

what does IS&T stands for?

Information Systems & Technology. They're mostly contractors that are hired to build and work on Apple's internal tools and infrastructure.

Buzzfeed News has an excerpt [0] from Alex Kantrowitz's book Always Day One [1], which contains interviews with former employees that describes the dynamic.

[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/always-d...

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52027218-always-day-one

Re: My Experience at Apple

#83

Post by markvdb »

This kind of story is why your first priority when you start earning a salary should be to save up some fk you money.

That should be about ten times easier on a software developer salary than on anything else, so consider yourself lucky.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#85

Post by sokoloff »

Apocryphon wrote: post #79
sokoloff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many articles and comments on HN critical of Apple. Read the vitriol over the 30% App Store cut, accusing them of being a minority and yet simultaneously monopoly producer of smartphones, the MBPro keyboard fiasco (which was absolutely shitty on Apple’s part), the glued-in batteries, the touchbar, the removal of ports, soldered-in RAM, etc. I don’t particularly think Apple gets a pass here. This article is…

Apple gets its share of critics as it has since its inception, but it also gets its share of loyalists where the rest of FANG don't. One quickly notices that in discussions there as much of a knee-jerk impulse to defend Apple, as there is to bash the company. Even your comment reveals an abrupt dismissal of the OP's testimony, impugning the character of its author.

I intended primarily to impugn their ability to tell a coherent, readable story, which is a necessary pre-condition for forming a judgment about the contents.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#86

Post by [deleted] »

limono wrote: post #49
exApple-anon wrote: post #9

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…

What org was that in? IS&T? I am thinking that this story by OP was in IS&T because that is known to be the worst org in Apple

[deleted]

Re: My Experience at Apple

#87

Post by raverbashing »

ma2rten wrote: post #70
exApple-anon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some extra tidbits that didn't make it in because the edit timer ran out: - Despite the big release and herculean efforts, both of us were paid a fraction of our target bonus. This was the day I decided to move jobs. - I eventually grew some balls and told Apple to (a) pay me 2.5x during overtime (b) hire SREs for this critical service, or (c) go fuck themselves. They chose (c), which worked alright because our servi…

I got an offer from Apple. The hiring manager told me "You worked at a startup before, you'll have no problem working overtime". I didn't end up taking the offer.

I can only answer with LOL to such offers

Yes I've worked for a startup. Yes I did long hours. Yes I learned that's not sustainable and not a good way to make things work.

So, no, I won't do it again.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#89

Post by dtech »

Someone wrote: post #62
loceng wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you expecting them to name real names and give specific enough details where they're then identifiable?

If this story realistically describes what happened, I would expect Apple HR can identify who wrote it (Muslim with a student OPT visa, specific request to do no previous work experience, reported issues with the export license, and a case like this) If there were tens of similar cases, we would have heard of more.

Someone has to speak out first and it has to get a ball rolling. Stuff like this can be hidden for decades before coming to light, if ever, see e.g. #metoo with prominent examples like Epstein and Spacey.
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