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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

311–320 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NY (and, I think, California), that's illegal. I found this out, because at the company at which I worked, managers kept making verbal commitments, then gaslighting me about them. I could never get them to commit in writing, and my own "reflection" emails (the standard advice about this) were worthless. I considered walking around with a little digital recorder in my pocket. But many states have explicit laws agai…

It is not illegal in New York to record a conversation if the person recording is part of the conversation (one-party consent).

Huh. I did not know that. Thanks!

Re: My Experience at Apple

#312

I had similar bad manager experience at $FAANG. Managers have so much control over information, narratives, and access to decision makers they control perception so most organizations are useless at properly evaluating their work. I've seen managers ride out perpetually failing projects that haven't made meaningful progress in years, team 'decisions' that are reliably and demonstrably bad, services that cost a fortun…

Union, now!

Re: My Experience at Apple

#313

Apple is a big company with a great reputation, but there are bad apples in every bunch. My biggest takeaway from this article is that the author should take this advice: Before you accept a position, find out what project you will be working on, and get to know the people who you will be working with. If you are being hired to replace someone who left, try to find out why they left (or were fired). I have not done m…

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#314
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind the reputation of Facebook is that it's more employee friendly and customer hostile, but Apple is more employee hostile (thinking about Steve Jobs stories) and customer friendly.

In what way is apple customer friendly? Definitely not in the fixing broken devices way. The hostility is across the board.

Which of your device did they break?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. I've worked at other FAANG companies which had these sorts of posts written about them, and I've witnessed plenty of situations that I would call "abusive". But what I read in this article was beyond the pale. I never felt like anybody adjacent to any of my roles might have cause to fear for their physical safety. Reviews were used as political tools and occasional sources of psychological abuse, su…

> But what I read in this article was beyond the pale. Yes, but while I believe it happened just like that, it's too beyond the pale to be representative of Apple at large. Looks like a particularly, close knit toxic team + gaslighting above levels about the new recruit.

>it's too beyond the pale to be representative of Apple at large.

Why?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#316
post #18

In such situations always gather evidence and hire a lawyer. HR are there to protect the interest of the company, you need someone that you employ to protect your interest.

Or in Europe etc, join a/the union. The union least has lawyers experienced in this kind of trouble, and they are cheap/free to use for members.

This. One worker is tiny against a company. Many together are strong.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#317
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!". That appears to mean that you will work in a small team, putting in unsustainable hours, but not receive the financial reward that a successful startup could provide. I've worked in several startups, and occasional death marches are unavoidable. They don't work month in and month out. But enduring that kind of life for just sa…

> the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!" I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke."

> I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke."

Sure... but you may still come in and find "this project has been nixed". Upside is that you may still have a 'job' in the bigger company, but everything you worked on may be thrown away, you may lose whatever political power your project had, etc. Certainly there's an 'immediate safety net' issue of "you may have a paycheck next week", but doesn't address any of the emotional stuff that goes along with "we'll have a scrappy startup mentality!"

I had been in something similar - not quite a 'startup in a large company' situation, but similar. And... we hit a "hey, this project is being shut down, and there's no other budget in the company for this team". So.. the company itself was still going OK - everyone else kept rolling along - but a handful of us were effectively cut adrift for a bit. Some were able to be assigned to other internal teams, some weren't.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#318
I dont quite remember the meeting room names in Mathilda 3 over at the Apple on Mathilda Ave, but if the MA03 (in the screenshot) refers to "Mathilda 3", then this story is totally believable.

I worked at Apple and it was absolutely horrible. I remember sitting on the train and actually thinking about killing myself. Reasons were many, but mostly I just didn't fit in there, I think.

I felt like people there were also a bunch of whiny little bitches to be honest. Always having some problem with a hand or a back or some family problem or whatever which demanded that they take days off. There were a few people whom I felt were probably talking some shit behind my back, but I couldn't really believe it until I read this story. It was just a horrible horrible place and I can also recognize that thing about having a predecessor, who was apparently a "bad person" and thus had to be terminated.

Every other day I would have people telling me how great a place it was and how lucky we were to be working in a place so big while still having that startup feeling. I have worked at startups and I always just imagined to myself that 40 year old "dude" who refuses to grow up. That is Apple..

Never again.

I got dragged through the whole white boarding experience also for the first time and it was fun enough, but in hindsight, they should just have asked me if I would suck Steve Jobs dick, if he came in that door. The answer to that question alone would have provided them with enough information about whether I would have been a good hire or not.

I am 45 and have never every experienced a work place like that. Always had positive feedback and never had any problems with colleagues.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#319

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…

Ianal. I think Apple broke a bunch of laws in your case you should be compensated for your overtime or at least the promised vacation, plus legal cost and a compensation for the abuse.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#320
post #233
post #27

I must try and understand my bias towards certain tech companies. When somebody says something bad about Facebook I instantly believe, but for some reason I had to really dig into this Apple engineer and it took me longer to believe them. Truth is harder to discern than I had thought.

I've been bashing Apple about BatteryGate a few times. You know, where they hid information from their customers in a way that benefitted their sales. They were sued and they settled. Which is basically admitting guilt, as these lawsuits are never lost by corporations (they either drag them out forever or if there too afraid of what losing implies, they settle). Each time I'm downvoted. The Apple Shiny Aluminum Corpo…

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