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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#391

Post by koonsolo »

acntr_employee wrote: post #229
rmk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king. This has been my experience as well. Nowadays I work hard only while most of the following are true: - I'm making top dollar (good salary + equity value is high) - Work is interesting (somethin…

Throwaway for obvious reasons I work for a company belonging to Accenture. I can only agree. Shareholders get +10%. Employees get nil. It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation. Project manager promises everything the client asks for. Even if they know we cannot in any universe deliver this without massive overtime. At the same time they introduce new mandatory processes to follow cost…

> It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation

Is this still a thing as a developer in the western world?

If any of my managers proposed this, I would laugh, then say "ah wait, you're serious?", and then laugh some more.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#392

Post by ficklepickle »

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.

You are the exact kind of person that would gladly embrace this culture. Maybe you should have finished the article, you would have seen a mirror.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#393

Post by mihaaly »

the-dude wrote: post #214
sfblah wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. I upvoted him to cancel out your downvote. Who cares if people complain about downvotes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

This is a cursory and opinionated, unfounded claim saying 'never' and 'boring'. Who are they to decide beforehand about something that doesn't even exist yet, based on a highly subjective matter (boring)?! Also this 'never' thing is just a joke, have they measured the goodness of comments on voting and resulted in 100% 'no good'? This kind of 'reasoning' about vote comments is pretty empty, equals to saying: 'because I say it so!' :/

Knowing the reasons is quite important in fact. Part of the discussion and understanding, learning.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#394

Post by starky »

outside1234 wrote: post #346
reactordev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, you can fill in the blank with any FAANG company with this story. I’ve heard it a thousand times. Toxic management. Sorry you went through that, sorry that was your first taste of engineering out of college. Glad you stuck with it. It’s a tough spot to be. Do you roll over and do the job your being yelled at to do even though you know any concessions are BS? Or like the senior folks, do you walk? It’s a really…

Honestly, at Microsoft, I've never seen a situation like this, and I have worked in something like 15 roles now. That might also be, for better and worse, why Microsoft folks have such long tenure at the company. Its honestly a great place to work compared to these shit shows.

I would suspect that finding out how many employees throughout the hierarchy have been there for a long time may be a good way to find a good company. The company I work for got acquired a couple years ago by a much older and larger company, and it usually feels like anyone you talk to has been there for 15, 20, even 30 years. I've yet to have a single issue with someone in that part of the parent organization, even though helping my group out isn't something they have been told to do.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#395

Post by ficklepickle »

All the fanbois criticizing the author with thinly-veiled racist/xenophobic rhetoric should be ashamed of themselves.

It is the exact same treatment the author describes in the article. Ignoring the substance of what he says and criticizing typographic or subjective stylistic mistakes. I am astonished that you can't see that.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#396

Post by frongpik »

generalpf wrote: post #54
randallsquared wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the rest was vague enough (and it only would be if this was a very common set of experiences), there was a screenshot of a 1-on-1 meeting time and room , so the anonymity ship has sailed.

The meeting was deleted afterwards. It’s mentioned right there in the post.

The main villain - the sr. director with bad breath - predicted this and got his subordinate - a manager - schedule the meeting. Later he stopped by and replaced that manager. In other words, he can claim he has never been to that meeting.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#397

Post by cryptica »

Most of the people I know who ended up working for big tech are the biggest psychopaths I've met.

These companies don't even select for talent anymore; they just select for psychopathy. If you're not a psychopath, you will not last in such company, no matter how good you are.

I'm surprised that they're not all strangling each other in there...

Re: My Experience at Apple

#398

Post by krooj »

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

I was thinking the exact same thing. I did all of three months in that org, attempted to switch to iCloud, got blocked, then quit and went back to my old company. Fuck that shit straight to hell.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#399

Post by pavel_lishin »

th33ngineer wrote: post #390
dreamcompiler wrote: post #212

Things new engineers don't know, but should: 1. HR doesn't work for you; they work to minimize liability for the company. If HR thinks the best way to accomplish that is to destroy your life, that's exactly what they will do. 2. Many SV companies, as well as groups within large, respected SV companies, only survive through exploitation. They exploit their customers, their workforce, or both. Exploitation means obtain…

> and reputation intact I'm staying at [large SV company] for now BECAUSE OF their reputation of hiring smart engineers, so that I will be able to hopefully get a gig at a more employee-friendly company later in life. New grads that were in my position often don't have much of a choice, and being offered the ability to pay off my student debt almost immediately at 22 seemed irresponsible to pass up. It's been 4 years…

So when do you decide to leave? Do you have a magic dollar amount? A particular mental health symptom you're waiting to develop? I'm not sure what you're waiting for. Four years at a company is a long time; it's not like you'd be accused of nonsense like job-hopping.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#400

Post by overkalix »

vmception wrote: post #378
worker767424 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being an early retail employee in the Bay Area, we had very close ties to Cupertino. I worked when Steve was still alive. Steve Jobs actually interacted with retail underlings?!

Their post doesn't say that, and I too read the chosen wording twice. Their employment overlapped with Steve Job's lifespan, that's it. That's important to them to say, and is completely useless to us. That's all.

The way I interpreted is, this torture culture is not a recent development. It already existed during SJ watch.
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