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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#571

Post by kablow »

libria wrote: post #78
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…

> - 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. I think this close, but a little off. Work hard only on what matters. Join the high visibility projects and work hard on the important parts. "Nobody notices" -> that's up to you. Document an…

> If it's not good, switch teams ASAP.

At least in large companies it can be pretty hard to actually find the good teams among all of the noise. I've tried to keep my eyes open for them but haven't had any luck yet.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#572

Post by jariel »

oblio wrote: post #224
jariel wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you did specifically say 'assert their own boundaries'. That's victim blaming to the extent there is nothing someone can do to assert themselves other than basically leaving.

Sometimes a bit of pushing back helps. A lot of people's bite is worse than their bite. Plus some people are frankly bullies and if stand up to them you see their true colors, as cowards.

This is not like 'learn to defend yourself if you are physically attacked'.

In this scenario, I suggest the advice would be to:

1) Get Out.

2) 'Bend like a reed in Wind' and avoid avoid avoid. Do your job as well as you can, document, be careful with HR but do document that.

Confrontation in this scenario probably just leads to more antagonizing.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#573

Post by dcist »

z3t4 wrote: post #541
anonymouse008 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For most larger companies an engineer salary, or any human labour for that matter, is very cheap. FAANG could pay 10x more if they had to, but they don't have to because no one else pays more.

I'm not so sure. If engineer's were cheap, you wouldn't have Steve Jobs colluding with other companies to suppress salaries: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jo...

Re: My Experience at Apple

#574

Post by dannyw »

worker767424 wrote: post #356
oblio wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Batterygate looks bad, but the technical reason of the battery not being able to supply enough current for the CPU to run at full speed without crashing makes sense, so I think it's mostly a case of communicating the change poorly.

Android phones don’t have the same problem, because they choose to slowly throttle the CPU only as needed if power delivery is insufficient.

On MacBooks, if _one_ of the USB-C ports break, all ports are disabled.

On the Intel MacBook, the fan is not attached to the heat sink, making it literally useless and cause the CPUs to fry out in a few years of turbo use.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#575

Post by Noumenon72 »

hinkley wrote: post #494
pembrook wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The fact that income inequality goes up every year says you're wrong about point 2.

That doesn't follow in a growing economy, even a very simple two-person one where person 1 picks bananas by hand and person 2 builds a faster banana picker every year. No exploitation there.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#576

Post by kmonsen »

ta1339 wrote: post #441
kmonsen wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fairly obviously true, FAANG's are large companies so lots of strange things happen even if they on average are great. I worked at Google for 10 years, and had 10 great years there with very little negative to say. That was true for almost anyone I knew. But there was a mailing list "yes at Google" for these kind of stories so other can see that it does happen even if most of us thought it was great. Most of…

I've never read anything even half as terrible as this story on Yes At Google. I'm not saying shitty things don't happen, but I'd like to believe that such shittiness would not fly at the G.

I had friends experience what I think was way worse at Google. Don't really feel comfortable sharing, but lets say it more or less always involved power games and/or sexual harassment. Worst one was probably a combination. Google was/is great, but sadly not for everyone.

I mean Andy Rubin and Amit Singhal worked at Google when they did their career ending stuff.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#577

Post by noen »

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've seen it happen, multiple times, at Microsoft. Additionally know 2nd hand of dozens of other instances of abuse, career sabotage, and scorched earth management.

Have been fortunate that the instances I was involved in directly, I was prepared, had extensive documentation, and my position (and my colleagues) were more valuable than the perpetrators, so they were swiftly shown the door.

At the end of the day it's the same at every large company. HR protects the business, not the employee. They don't protect the victim, they protect the more valuable resource.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#578

Post by dcist »

gamblor956 wrote: post #322
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if…

Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. Very false. Generally, the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer is that the good lawyer will counsel the client about the chances of not winning the case, especially after discovery has concluded, while a bad lawyer won't. If the the winnability of a case was apparent at the start, there wouldn't be a case as the parties would settl…

Depends on the case. If a case is taken on a contingency basis (personal injury, medical malpractice, and other practice areas are usually contingency), the lawyer will only take winnable cases because the client is paying a billable hour rate and if you lose you're left with nothing but expenses and an angry client.

For cases where the client is paying the billable hour rate, lawyers will take just about any case as long as it isn't totally unethical and could get you in hot water with the bar.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#579

Post by op00to »

Was there a punchline at the end? It read like it was written by a preteen - bouncing around with vignettes and stream of consciousness. I couldn’t get to the end. They all sound awful to work with.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#580

Post by israrkhan »

Apocryphon wrote: post #68
polote wrote: post #17

Honestly why do people think that cannot happen at Apple ? That kind of thing can happen in any company. Apple is thousands of employees, it only requires a few bad people to create a situation like that. I'm not sure though, creating a post like that is the best thing. I don't know what exists in the US, but in France, you can sue your employer for free (You don't even need a lawyer), and if you are able to show a f…

There is a tendency to give Apple a pass among the big companies. They sell actual products instead of you, the user('s data). Their logistical chain does not rely upon a system of (often fellow American) warehouse workers who are pushed to the breaking point. [The developing world workforce that actually assembles their products- that's another story, but bogus hoaxes like Mike Daisey's only add confusion and make t…

> Their logistical chain does not rely upon a system of (often fellow American) warehouse workers who are pushed to the breaking point.

Just couple of days ago there was this article on front page of HN

https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/29/iphone-workers-forced-labor/

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