Live data from Hacker News

My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

411–420 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#411

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?!

Can we please not call people who work in retail “underlings”?

I'd call engineers underlings, too. It's more honest than "retail associate."

Re: My Experience at Apple

#412

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…

> In our 1:1s he told us we might not have a job if our product doesn't ship on time (we were competing with another internal team to beat them to the punch.)

That sounds like behavior I've seen in banks - more the "competing with other teams" than straight job threats.

It's baffling. If I'm a company, the idea of having more than one team doing the same thing in order to try to beat the other down strikes me as not just counter-productive, but expensive and evidence of a broken hierarchy and culture.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#413
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.

I happen to think the opposite. I know it's unpopular.

Downvoted posts are distinct markers that shape our experience. But we're warned to not discuss it; the very thing that controls how we see and what we see (or not see). Apparently that's boring.

Voting systems create echo chambers. Most people vote based on subjective agreement, not on objective quality. We need to be aware of that, and discuss it. Just my opinion, which I'm wary to post but will anyhow.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#414
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a similar line from a certain european video-game company.

I interviewed for Blizzard many years ago. One of the first questions they asked is how many all-nighters I had done. Yeah, that was the end for me.

My frank response would be something along the lines of "I'm going to ask you a question, and how you respond will likely determine if I work here, 'Are you self selecting for incompetents or doormats?'" Their response to this question would probably tell you most of what you want to know about working at that company.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What are you supposed to do if your employment contract says you’re exempt (meaning no overtime pay)?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#416
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's their social? would be a good follow-up too. I'm not sure you understand that Apple could bury this person's career and numerous companies only need one phone call to let this person go. Please understand that you're creating an attack vector that is too great for this person to reveal.

The picture the author included has enough information for an outsider to piece together their organization. The fact that it includes a meeting time and room would be enough for Apple to figure out who it was, just by looking at who booked it. Unfortunately, they probably are already in a position where Apple knows exactly who they are, and perhaps their colleagues do too.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#417
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can empathize with your story. I once landed what I thought would be my dream job at my dream company. I quickly discovered that the position was open because all of the previous team had quit due to the extreme toxicity. > The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard Be careful about getting jaded and cynical. This is far from a universal truth in the tech industry. I've hired a few ex-FA…

The last few jobs I’ve had were glowing from the interviews and believe me I asked some very tough questions I hoped would be revealing enough without torpedoing my candidacy. Every one of them: as soon as I started, the foundational person of the team quit, you know the guy or gal who burned themselves out building the process. Fixing all the cruft and actually trying to unfuck everything but leaving scant documenta…

a) how I can assess if the team is bleeding talent

Nothing wrong with asking the average tenure of people on the team imo, that is something you can frame in a way less likely to make them lie.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#418

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…

This can be hard to do, especially at a place like Apple where you’ll often just get a basic idea of what you’ll be working on. And how are you supposed to judge your coworkers by the hour or so you spent with them in an interview?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#419
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last few jobs I’ve had were glowing from the interviews and believe me I asked some very tough questions I hoped would be revealing enough without torpedoing my candidacy. Every one of them: as soon as I started, the foundational person of the team quit, you know the guy or gal who burned themselves out building the process. Fixing all the cruft and actually trying to unfuck everything but leaving scant documenta…

a) how I can assess if the team is bleeding talent Nothing wrong with asking the average tenure of people on the team imo, that is something you can frame in a way less likely to make them lie.

I'll be honest, my default perspective is to expect filibustering and non-answers from all but the actualized and self-aware teams, who if reading this thread and many, many others like it, and lived experience are anything reliable: are less common than their frustrating counterparts.
Post reply on HN