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Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#151

Post by htrp »

pbronez wrote: post #105
tedivm wrote: post #18

I think it's really important to note that Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies, but not only do they choose to do so they also make sure the information is wrong. Apple is, essentially, being unethical on two levels. They're selling or sharing employee information, and they're purposefully making it so that information is wrong. I want to stress this- I ask during the intervie…

> Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies Also, those third parties don't have to take Apple's word. Equifax and Lexis-Nexis (named in the article) are selling a data product, which is undermined by Apple's bad behavior. Shouldn't these companies have an incentive to provide accurate data? This is where it gets interesting. I looked up the products in question, and they are VERY c…

> You would expect that products like this would have rigorous, automated anomaly detection procedures in place.

In general the number of data vendor products is inversely proportional to the quality of the data they can provide.

in other news, they definitely do not have any of the logical data quality checks, usually they rely on the client to do theor own checks

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#152

Post by joshstrange »

ryandrake wrote: post #138

Wow, I was about to post in support of this, but surprisingly this seems like a wildly unpopular opinion on HN! Honestly, I wish all companies did this. The less information out there in databases about me (or the more obfuscated), the better. People should not be able to just "request" personal information like this from some 3rd party data provider. It's none of a prospective employers' business what my full title…

I agree, I find the whole "DB of past employers, title, salary, etc" to be quite disgusting. Furthermore if you are just using your past title to swing a new job then I question your ability. Prove that you can perform at the level you want to be hired at. If companies are too stupid to find a way to test for that (or too stupid to have a probationary period to find people that made it past initial screens) then that's not a company I care to work for. Hire me because I have the skills you need, not because I held some made-up rank at another company.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#153

Post by paisawalla »

smrz wrote: post #130
tinalumfoil wrote: post #96

If Apple considers level 1 and 5 to both be associates and doesn’t share more than that that’s… fine? WaPo says this can be a 6 figure difference in compensation but frankly why should a future employer get to know how much I make? Maybe I’m a level 3 but deserved to be a level 4. Maybe I’m a level 5 but actually a level 2 that’s just really good at office politics. If I want my employer to know what number Apple ass…

I cannot wait to check back in with you when you're trying to get a new job and negotiating salary. > If I want my employer to know what number Apple assigned me, I’ll tell them. Literally this article is about employers being like "hmm you told me this number but we don't believe you because Apple says its wrong"

> I cannot wait to check back in with you when you're trying to get a new job and negotiating salary.

Hi, checking in. Your current/previous salary is no business of your future employer. You don't have to share it, and it shouldn't form the basis of your future salary.

If this seems alien, or improbable to you, people can and do learn how to tactfully steer conversations away from disadvantageous topics.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#154

Post by inlined »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #123
tedivm wrote: post #18

I think it's really important to note that Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies, but not only do they choose to do so they also make sure the information is wrong. Apple is, essentially, being unethical on two levels. They're selling or sharing employee information, and they're purposefully making it so that information is wrong. I want to stress this- I ask during the intervie…

I don't necessarily agree that what they are doing is unethical. It seems more a preservation of their business practices. Which is understandable and actually the ethical thing to do since Apple has no obligation to help others, including competitors. There is also an argument that what they are doing is the ethical thing to do by not feeding data into yet another mass surveillance and control system to manage and c…

If apple is lying about job titles and that lie harms an individual that is the definition of libel.

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#155

Post by wpietri »

snowwrestler wrote: post #128
HWR_14 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't feel like Tim Cook is an extreme narcissist cult leader, but I don't know enough about him. Of course, the fact that he hasn't mythologized himself as much as Steve Jobs did is a piece of evidence in favor of him not being a narcissist. If I had to choose a "tech company cult" it would be Tesla/SpaceX/Boring/whatever else Musk is running.

The narcissistic personality at the center of Apple’s culture today is Apple itself. Even Cook speaks in near-reverential tones about the company he leads. Most corporations try to do this in the long run; it’s arguably inherent in the concept of incorporation, which is etymologically and legally the creation of a new “person.” Even if it starts with an iconic founder, in the long run the company itself must become t…

Ooh, that's an interesting take. The notion is basically that Apple has gone from "cult" to "church", where it has transcended the reliance on a central personal figure?

You've got me going through the ABCDEF in a new way: http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#156

Post by codazoda »

Spoom wrote: post #89
sprayk wrote: post #69

(Just to throat clear ahead of time... I obviously find what Apple is doing super shitty. I just want to find some reason besides "Apple bad" for why they would do this.) Could they be doing this title change, at least in theory, as an information security measure? Competitors and journalists could potentially corroborate (or have an easier time corroborating) leaks if they can verify that a former employee is the po…

This was my first thought. Apple is notoriously secretive, even internally. They likely see this as a way to prevent folks from reverse engineering through job titles what former employees were working on. (Agreed that it's super shitty and likely overkill, but I think this is a better explanation than outright trying to screw former employees.) In this case, though, why not replace the job title with "Employee"?

I'm not going to make a judgment call on why but it does seem feasible that their system could have a drop-down for title, there is nothing generic in that list, so someone decided to use "Associate".

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#157

Post by paisawalla »

cma wrote: post #150
corry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see a weird sort of logic to Apple. Why would they share their judgement about the level of an ex-employee with a potential rival company (rival in case of talent perhaps also product)? Let the employee say "I was Level 5 @ Apple" and have the hiring company verify that the person is at whatever level that implies . Why should Apple allow its rivals piggyback on its own levelling system?

Undermining everyone who leaves is cult leadership behavior.

Counterpoint: accurately ascertaining an engineer's capability is their secret sauce, why should they be obliged to share that information with anyone?

Re: Every employee who leaves Apple becomes an ‘associate’

#158

Post by joshstrange »

johncessna wrote: post #64

Looking back at my career, I don't think this would have impacted me in any way. I've found titles to be meaningless this industry. They may hold some weight in FAANG companies only because folks know what an amazon L5, microsoft 62, google, facebook E4, etc. are. There's even a handy website [1] to compare them. When you get out of FAANG, titles becomes even more irrelevant. What's a Programmer VI compared to a seni…

Titles are stupid, I agree. I've had varying titles throughout my career and they've never meant anything, all I care about is the compensation, call me whatever you want. In larger companies I understand the reasoning behind them a little more but outside of FAANG they really don't matter. I've even worked at places that had SE 1, SE 2, Senior SE levels, the compensation has zero ties to those titles. I know for a fact there were SE2's that made a lot more than the seniors (and no, this wasn't just some overlap in compensation tiers, there were no compensation tiers, just made up titles).
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