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…
Big difference is that other FAANGs have much less secretive inside culture. That of course doesn’t prevent abuse, and horrible experiences will happen everywhere. But it’s much easier to hide and develop pockets of abuse if everything you work on is top secret.
My Experience at Apple
531–540 of 840 posts
Re: My Experience at Apple
#532Dude go talk to a work comp attorney. You don’t have to pay up front and this is a textbook stress claim, esp if six months employment. It’s sad nobody knows their rights. Your first clue is the fact that they were pressuring you to resign. NEVER RESIGN. It sad he will be dealing with this stress for life but never thought that he should at least consult with an attorney??? THIS IS AMERICA. You think HR and those idi…
- that they would have been able to find let alone retain a lawyer out of grad school
- that they knew enough about workers compensation law to event think of that option
- that they somehow understood the existence of recourses beyond HR in a highly secretive and litigious company
- that they weren't terrified that this could lead to long term stigma and stifle their career which is crucial to their ability to remain in the U.S.
I say this as a white European who was under an [OPT][1] and somehow managed to find a company willing to sponsor its renewal. Even for me the process was opaque and terrifying and I'm extremely lucky that no one tried to take advantage of the situation. Had I fallen into the kind of toxic nightmare described in the post, it would also would have felt insurmountable.
Most employers don't understand work visas and really don't care to but those who do surely understand the leverage they have. Even people on work visas often struggle to understand their rights since BY DESIGN they are dependent on employers for their ability to remain in the country. If you lose your job under most work visas, you need to find a new job immediately or pack up and go home regardless of the circumstances.
Initially, there are [safeguards][2] to prevent wage discrimination for visa workers, but eventually after receiving a work permit, before its renewal, or before an employer accepting to sponsor a green card application, the baseline level of fear you're under effectively reduces job mobility for visa workers. Not being able to "quit and just get a new job" like most U.S. residents because their current one is utterly toxic, visa workers have to interview, secure a new employer, initiate a work visa transfer, all with unpredictable delays in transfer processing from USCIS which routinely leads to companies rescinding job offers because the USCIS is too slow (we're talking months and years) to adjudicate requests.
The idea that someone under an OPT would launch a workers comp suit against Apple for emotional abuse is sadly very far-fetched to me. The OPT worker likely be quickly out of a job and their unemployment grace period (90 days for OPT, 60 days for H-1B) would quickly run out as interviewers for prospective jobs would ask "What made you want to leave Apple after such a short time?"
[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-...
Re: My Experience at Apple
#533Earlier 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.
Edit: Funny. Usually I get downvoted for being skeptical of Tesla or Bitcoin. This is a new one for me. Downvote away HN trolls!!!
Edit 2: Lol. Picked up another downvote for mentioning Tesla and Bitcoin. I'm awesome.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#534Posting 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…
I am so sorry this happened to you. :,( I hope Tim Cook sees this and takes swift action to make things right with you, hold others accountable, and ensure processes are changed to prevent this from ever recurring.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#535Things 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…
You’re correct on point 1, but point 2 is overly pessimistic. The fact that the economy grows every year is proof alone that companies on the whole are generating value and not just exploiting people. The economy is not a zero sum game. The truth is, all companies, no matter how cool their branding is, are just a collection of mostly average people. The larger the company, the more average the workforce will be. This…
stockholm
Re: My Experience at Apple
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember my SO working for a German bank. It was exactly as you describe. She was in a back-office job. She always said she was an overpaid perl script 95% of the time and interesting work for the rest. Exploitation is common in many companies. For me this stems from information asymmetry. Employer knows the job market, knows the salary spread, knows all internal salaries. As an employee you do not have these insig…
> Not sure what a potential solution would look like. Make all salaries public by law - you could even anonymize people, although there would be lots of issues with that caveat. I'm not saying this is a good solution (most people don't want to talk about their salaries), but it would solve the problem. It's already the case for government employees.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand the allure of FAANG for residents besides the money. The thing is, for us H1B workers, we have very limited options. And these big companies have the best track record in processing GC for us. Unless these regulations got changed, and give smaller companies more chances. Given how powerful big companies are, I probably wouldn't be surprised if they also lobbied regulations against small companies h…
I'm not an immigrant, so I don't have your perspective. But I wonder the same about H1B's: I don't understand the allure of the United States (besides the money?). Our industry is horrible to its H1B's, H1B exploitation is rampant and disgusting. FAANG hires them so that they can exploit them as cheap labor that can't risk leaving. Why not move somewhere else if you want to work abroad? I can think of so many better…
It depends on how you define H1B abuse. Most of the H1-B abuse I'm aware of are either from small companies, or companies like Infosys, etc where they really exploit the whole system. Most of the major companies (Microsoft, FAANG, etc) do not have systematic abuse, beyond perhaps lowering everyone's wages as a result of hiring them. At least where I worked, people with H1B's did not get paid less than those who were citizens.
Now although there's no systematic abuse, individual instances exist where managers exploit this dynamic and tend to overwork people. In the teams I saw this, it was usually the manager doing it to everyone (H1B or citizen), but they were often biased in favor of hiring H1Bs. One particular (very senior) manager was recently fired for abusive behavior, and it likely was because he became senior enough that many of the people under him were not H1Bs, and were quite vocal in not putting up with his crap. So it does exist.
As another commenter said, FAANGs and similar companies are usually very good at helping you get a green card. My company, for example, has a policy that if they hire you for a H1B, they will start your green card process as soon as they can. You just have to perform your job till you get it (1-2 years if you're not Indian or Chinese and have a MS degree). Most other companies (including established big names) do not have such a policy - a lot of them say they want to try you out for a while to see if you're good enough before putting in the financial investment to apply for your green card. With lots of companies, you often have to pay for it yourself and keep a tab on the law firm to make sure they're doing things right - not so at FAANG.
For a lot of H1Bs, they have to consider the alternatives. Quite a few come from countries with little opportunities, and much worse abuse. I can say that for my case, and it is likely true for people from India, China and Korea.
The "pipeline" is also easy in the US. Come here for a MS degree, and get hired. For many other countries, it's not that easy. Some allow you to immigrate due to your advanced degree, but with no guarantee of work, so you need to have plenty of money saved while you look for work - something many cannot afford.
For all that we hear about racism in the US, the day to day experience (outside of work) is still a lot better in the US than in many European countries. A South Asian friend of mine moved from the US to Switzerland and not long after he moved someone planted a big anti-immigrant sign right on his door. He was also made to feel unwelcome in bars. I've heard similar stories in other European countries. The experiences aren't directly comparable - some things really are worse in the US, but it's not a clear ordering where other countries are better. The only one better places I can think of is Canada (albeit with a lot lower pay), and maybe Australia. Australia was definitely considered worse than the US (from an anti-immigrant stance) in the 90's, but most people I know who've moved in the last 15 years really like it.
So as bad as you think the US is, there aren't many good alternatives if your goal is to settle down. Either you get a good environment with no path to citizenship and/or low income, or you get a poor environment (locals very unfriendly), or both.
> FAANG hires them so that they can exploit them as cheap labor that can't risk leaving.
FAANG pays H1Bs more than almost all other companies pay senior American execs. I cannot call that exploitation.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also worked for Apple and I had a very similar experience. Management was brutal and abusive from my immediate manager to all the way up to and including the VP level. For example even though vacation hours were accrued I never got to use them unless I wanted to endure the verbal backlash of abandoning the team and my responsibilities. When the holidays came around the director would email everyone reminding us the…
> everyone was merged into another team working on something similar with new management. Meet the new boss same as the old boss I worked for Apple before Jobs died. He'd frequently have several teams working on the exact same thing, in secret, and then pick the team that met his goals the best. Sometimes the "losers" would be merged into the "winning" team, but never treated well by the winners.
Probably a very common abusive management style at high levels in many industries.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#539Posting 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…
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…
Have worked at two FAANG companies, and neither would tolerate even a hint of such behavior.
It's an open secret in silicon valley that you work at apple for one of the three reasons: 1. You didn't know better 2. Were a fan/fanboi. 3. That was the best you could do (for whatever reasons).
Every time something negative about Apple gets posted here, I see this typical response - oh, they all do it. Stop with this nonsense.
Re: My Experience at Apple
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
> everyone was merged into another team working on something similar with new management. Meet the new boss same as the old boss I worked for Apple before Jobs died. He'd frequently have several teams working on the exact same thing, in secret, and then pick the team that met his goals the best. Sometimes the "losers" would be merged into the "winning" team, but never treated well by the winners.
Gosh - I hope that isn’t a prerequisite to greatness? How does someone even get the human and financial capital to run projects like this? I guess your first attempt with the first founding team has to ‘hit.’ Otherwise, how can you afford to triple headcount, management, etc?
Jobs was a notorious jerk [1] [2] [3], so it's not surprising that similar behavior is what gets promoted.
[1] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atar...
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/memoir-steve-jobs-apos-daughter-1...