Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#751

Post by parasubvert »

throwaway_1237 wrote: post #281
parasubvert wrote: post #88

This would be far more valuable if it weren’t anonymous and didn’t have the threat at the end. Cheapens the message. Think of Susan Fowler with Uber, and why that was so effective.

I won’t reply using my real accounts on HN or Medium for fear of retaliation by Apple... I think it’s still valuable and entirely understandable.

I didn’t say it had no value. Clearly Apple should be doing an internal investigation.

Just that it likely won’t lead to much change on its own from public pressure.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#752

Post by Symbiote »

praptak wrote: post #237
Symbiote wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't believe any of the FAANG companies have unions, not even in Europe. This is still good advice though - unions will probably help you even as a non-member.

Engineers in the UK could join Prospect, although there are also alternatives for more specific fields.

They have an advice line, but don't generally help non-members.

https://prospect.org.uk/article/getting-help/

UTAW looks like a new British union for tech workers, set up by Google and Microsoft employees.

https://utaw.tech/about

Re: My Experience at Apple

#753

Post by dragonwriter »

greggman3 wrote: post #565
dragonwriter wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the company tries to dock them for working less they'd immediately become non-exempt. This is false. First, the relevant rule that is kind of like that is the “salary basis” rule, which doesn't apply to all exempt employees; for instance, it does not apply to “Computer professionals who are paid on an hourly basis at a rate not less than $27.63 per hour.” Second, even for exempt employees subject to the salary b…

Are you sure? This department of labor letter seems to state otherwise https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/2006...

> Are you sure?

Yes.

> This department of labor letter seems to state otherwise

That letter doesn't deal with even the question of what effects the status of exempt employees, since it deals with rules applicable to, and I quote from the letter itself, “salaried non-exempt employees.”

Even so, while it finds the specific conduct being addressed was prohibited, it articulates a rule similar to the one I discuss for exempt employees subject to the salary basis test, stating that, “an employer may take a disciplinary deduction from an employee’s salary for willful absences or tardiness or for infractions of major work rules.”

Re: My Experience at Apple

#754

Post by derivagral »

justapassenger wrote: post #477
derivagral wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other fields have separate teams or overtime; salary-exempt isn't something an individual person can realistically negotiate against a company (imo).

Other fields don’t release new version of their product every few days. Oncall for things that are always changing is very hard to be done by people who aren’t ones making those changes. You need formal release process and expecting training for each change. That’s not how 99.99% of internet businesses work.

I'll note that only the largest of those companies had this deployment style. The rest were either ~quarterly (with client pressure to slow that down) or weekly/monthly (agile-ish).

I think the only one with a formal release process was the quarterly release outfit, and even that was due to single-client risk.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#755

Post by etamponi »

Thanks for sharing this. I imagine it had to be painful to write. Sharing such experiences help others in the same situation understand that it's not their fault: unfortunately, toxic people and toxic work environments exist.

If you are in a situation like the one described, my advice is: _just leave_. It's not worth it: it's not worth the money, it's not worth the feeling of "failure", it's not worth the fear that you won't find anything better. Just leave. If you have some friends at that job, don't worry: they'll understand.

Don't be afraid of not finding anything else: we're very lucky in this regard, software engineering jobs are relatively easy to find. And "there may be many unexpected feasts ahead of you".

Re: My Experience at Apple

#756

Post by p_l »

jimbob45 wrote: post #457
p_l wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of culture clash between USA, where "overtime exempt" is a thing, and most of Europe, where it is required to be paid (of course, there are cases where people end up being pressured... or like me, forgot to log the overtime hours despite secretary going around with the sheet). Of course that only applies to people working on employment contracts, not those who got seduced by "B2B" :|

It’s supposed to work both ways - I work 60 hours this week with the implicit understanding that I work 20 next week. Sure, I don’t get OT pay, but I can abide by that as long as it all balances out to 2000 hours at the end of the year. That said, the abuse of the exemption system is arguably a pandemic in the US.

The problem is that unlike with proper overtime protection, it's just an implicit understanding that is in no way guaranteed.

Overtime laws generally allow taking the hours worked back as PTO. The only thing is that usually there are limits to avoid running everyone ragged with no end.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#757

Post by Grustaf »

thinkingemote wrote: post #705
griffoa wrote: post #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…

>Always having some problem with a hand or a back or some family problem or whatever which demanded that they take days off You now know that they too hated the place and did whatever they could to not be there, I hope. They were not "whiny little bitches" at all.

Isn't that usually exactly the reason some people are winy little bitches?

Re: My Experience at Apple

#758

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

uzakov wrote: post #737
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're on a H1 (or some of its cousins here) and you lose your job, you have no option to even try to find another. Your legal status in the US is coupled to that job, not just any job.

Are you sure that is correct? According to results from googling you get 60 days to find a new job if you got laid off from H1B job. https://www.stilt.com/blog/2020/05/steps-after-an-h1b-layoff... . Ps: to someone who downvoted, what don't you agree with?

You are right that I overstated this. You do have a window to try to find a new job. However, the new employer will need to be willing to sponsor a new H1B visa, and will need to get their part done within a fairly narrow timeframe.

I agree that this is not an impossible scenario. But I also have a strong feeling that it's not a particularly likely one either.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#759

Post by cutemonster »

outsomnia wrote: post #637
mark-r wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting theory. If you pay 2 teams A and B to work on the same project, and B finishes in half the time it would have taken A, you really didn't spend anything extra did you?

... until you find they finished first by cutting corners and delivering something that is only capable of passing the scant unit tests. Then the "zero knowledge" psychopathic management style doesn't seem so smart.

> until you find they finished first by cutting corners and ...

Or until they accidentally burnt down the office building. You're right, doesn't seem so smart

Re: My Experience at Apple

#760

Post by cutemonster »

fortran77 wrote: post #621
chromatin wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know more than one famous scientist who does this. Multiple postdocs working on the same project. Whomever gets there first gets a Cell-Science-Nature paper. The other(s) get nothing. Probably a very common abusive management style at high levels in many industries.

It’s fine if everyone knows they’re in a competition

At the same time, can't this make it harder for members of the different teams to become friends with each other -- in a way, they are competitors, not coworkers. And maybe they'd be worried about getting fired if they "lost"? That could cause some of them to start looking for other jobs? Or some could feel bad, get demotivated. And other weird side effects.

What could be ways to avoid such things

How did this work out at Apple? When you were there

Post reply on HN