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Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

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Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#351

Post by bell-cot »

jarjoura wrote: post #315

I can only speak to my experience in the engineering org at Meta and past experience at Apple. One key difference between Apple and Meta is that each individual (on the ground) team at Apple is responsible for its own hiring. Whereas at Meta, they have a general company-wide engineering pool that is mainly driven by recruiters to fill. A manager at Apple will get a batch of resumes and start hiring with a recruiter a…

Reaction: Sounds like Apple's method encourages managers to select and hire one person, who is a very good fit for his team's actual current need. Vs. Meta's encourages managers to cast a net, haul in a load of fish, and hope that one of 'em is a passable fit for his team's current need. But many keep a few extra fish regardless - since he'll have more needs in the future, and fishing is a crap shoot.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#352

Post by giantg2 »

sosull wrote: post #288
giantg2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful how you do it. I was punished for turning it down. I was told that all I needed to do was work one extra hour per day (in addition to normal support, elevation, etc). Why would I take a position with higher expectations for a 7% raise and a 13% increase in hours - a rate cut? Plus, if I'm a high performer in my current role I should be getting bigger bonuses. I have a skip level where the depar…

I can empathise. Telling them that you didn’t want a management-style position was probably the right move given all the reasons you laid out, but it’s also an implicit rejection of everything that the people around you are striving for. They equate management with productivity and respect. You’re thinking of it like the difference between a pilot and an air traffic controller. Jobs with vastly different purposes. Bu…

That all makes sense, but this was for a promotion to senior dev.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#353

Post by guhidalg »

officeplant wrote: post #306
guhidalg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenting on the campus bit.... Apple makes devices, not just software. Good luck developing device from home and dealing with the constant headache of shipping samples around the world. The campus was not a mistake.

Trusted engineers get to take home prototypes. Usually also loaned a maxed out Mac Pro so they have something with enough memory to unpack MacOS's built in system process recording mode. (digging through a 5 minute recording of MacOS took ~~200GB of system memory to unpack and evaluate.)

I assume by your answer that you work at Apple or know someone who works there so let me clarify that I'm talking about the messy work that happens before you have a take home prototype for a device. I'm talking about building the prototype with in-house machinery before asking the manufacturer to make samples at the factory. If you do work at Apple, do you hand assemble prototypes at the office or do you just ask the manufacturer to build them and overnight them to your house? If so, do you have lab equipment at home to inspect and test it?

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#354

Post by ben7799 »

WWLink wrote: post #348
ben7799 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the impression Google and Amazon use the same model as Meta. But in working in the field since the 1990s I have never encountered or worked at any company that used their model. I think their model is likely superior in terms of hiring the most people in the shortest time. With the shortcoming that it might make it easy to overhire, and it might not fill the job with the best person as often. Lots of small to m…

The funny thing is my personal experience was the opposite. I have a lot of experience in embedded software. The recruiters I interacted with at Google knew about my specialization and targeted positions that were embedded-related (like, at waymo or their other projects). However, the actual phone screen interview was with a web programmer that had very little C++ background and seemed pretty uncomfortable with me us…

I wasn't trying to make it about me.. I am not in embedded software, though I've dabbled in it and that would have been a nice path to take instead.

But we all specialize in something and I don't really think I've gone down a path where any of those big companies would really ever be a good place for me now. I think whatever path you go down in terms of specialization would certainly influence your interactions with their recruiting.

I have been working/interviewing since the late 90s.. when I interviewed with various companies is over a 25 year period at this point, so they were not the same companies they are today. I interviewed at Apple in the late 90s when they were a mess, and I thought they were a mess. I didn't own a Mac, they were too expensive for me as a student, so I'm sure that didn't help. I turned down a job at MS out of college because they put a delay in the process and I'd gone elsewhere by the time they contacted me. MS would have been a better place for me to go to start. Google & Amazon I interviewed at > 10 years ago when public/industry opinion of them was much higher. By the time FB/Meta really got going I declined.. I have not had a strong opinion of them. However, of all my friends who have worked at the FAANG companies the ones who work at Meta seem the happiest, with the ones who worked Amazon having had the most unhappy experience and Google seemingly in the middle.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#355

Post by lapcat »

cguess wrote: post #346
lapcat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you absolutely need more engineers to maintain the software and you need to buy more servers and hire more sysadmins etc. Apple makes software, you know. ;-) They also have many internet services, such as iCloud, App Store, Apple Music, TV+, etc.

None of which scaled significantly due to the pandemic. Everyone at companies that use Macs had Macs already, so if they're not using the one at work anymore there's not a net increase of Mac users.

Um, Mac sales skyrocketed during the pandemic. Anyway, Apple makes other products that use internet services too, like iPad, and... have you heard of iPhone? ;-)

App Store downloads also increased a lot during the pandemic.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#356

Post by ghaff »

ben7799 wrote: post #339
paulmd wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a cultural mindset especially among startups that it's better to be alive and having to make layoffs than to move conservatively, have a faster mover overtake you and push you out of the market, and be dead. "The graveyards are full of businesses that moved appropriately for the market conditions", to warp a saying. apple is an enormously stable company in ways that (to be very honest) even most other tech b…

This is kind of a west coast SV/social/adtech type of startup mentality. Working east coast in more traditional tech companies this has never really been a thing. It's always been conservative, staying profitable, etc.. It is the older way. Apple, MS, etc.. were built this way too of course.

Well, of course, how many of the east coast minicomputer companies are still around? That said, I agree in general, there's probably a general difference in approach between east coast and west coast. (And the mix of companies--and government--is generally different and reflects that.)

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#358

Post by scarface74 »

com2kid wrote: post #331
scarface74 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just Mac revenue by itself would be the envy of most companies. But you can easily look at Apple’s revenue breakdown between Mac, iPads, services, wearables, etc and see that it is well diversified. And Microsoft never “bailed them out”. Before the MS deal was signed, Apple had already gotten a line of credit for a couple of billion. The $250 million that Microsoft invested in Apple was nothing. Apple turned around a…

What % of those wearables and services are tied to devices? If iPhones vanished tomorrow, how much trouble would Apple be in? Wearables are 100% attach rate to iPhone, and I'd presume so are the vast majority of service subscribers. > Before the MS deal was signed, Apple had already gotten a line of credit for a couple of billion. The $250 million that Microsoft invested in Apple was nothing. As others said, the soft…

They would still have Mac revenue that is more than they ever had pre-iPhone.

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#359

Post by hailwren »

selectodude wrote: post #347
hailwren wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What feature of the pro makes it worth $150 ($650 if you have the larger screen) more than the comparable iPad?

120Hz + Apple Pencil.

So, 120hz is only on the 12.9. If it’s worth twice the price to you, that’s your decision.

The apple pencil difference is magnetic charging and magnetic storage on the side of the ipad. Which is nice, but it also means you have the camera in the absolutely most annoying spot in the world. Good luck using faceID while you’re browsing and you’re always going to have the worst angle/look like you’re staring into space during video calls.

iPadOS just doesn’t cut it for multi-tasking/any pro workload that would justify an M2 chip

Re: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

#360

Post by inlined »

anthomtb wrote: post #282
flangola7 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's the last revolutionary consumer technology that has come out of Apple? The original successful Macs, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, those were all under Jobs.

What revolutionary consumer technology has emerged since the iPhone, from any company?

The iPad
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