My Experience at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: My Experience at Apple

#221

Post by coldtea » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

>If Apple refuse to take actions, I will interview with major media outlets describing the experience in more details and I will release a list of all individuals involved from senior management to the HR director and all the evidence as public record.

I'd say go for it.

I like Apple products (most of them), but this is nuts, and those people must be punished, up to the level that allowed it.

Unfortunately golden parachutes mean that certain levels and above will just get a repositioning and laught it off at worst...

Re: My Experience at Apple

#222

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

bredren wrote: post #184

zcw100 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'd advise people who experience toxic workplaces or think that they are in them to consider whether they themselves are lacking in the ability to assert their own boundaries and act on those assertions when they are broken repeatedly." That's it, blame the victim.

If that is what you took from my post, you’re mistaken. People should not be emotionally abusive. But they are. They attain positions of power. Through reflection you may come to realize they are among people you consider friends or family. You can’t “fix” them, but you can learn how to handle or avoid them. Sometimes, if a person looks inward and into their past they will find a pattern of people who have taken adva…

> Sometimes, if a person looks inward and into their past they will find a pattern of people who have taken advantage of them.

If someone has moved one far enough from the original trauma in order to work towards self-development, that's good advice to them. But in this case, they are still dealing with the fallout. Your advice is extolling them to work on themselves rather than trying to bring the perpetrators to justice and seek restitution from those who did them wrong. In other words, you're placing burden on the wronged rather than focusing on those who wronged them. That's victim blaming.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#223

Post by djcapelis » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #21

exApple-anon wrote: post #9

Posting 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…

It’s not a hard decision. You unquestionably walk away from a situation like this. If your interactions with the team are going this poorly, walk immediately. There’s nothing to be gained from trying to hang on in a situation like this. This person should have walked much earlier.

It’s agonizing how much broken US immigration policy plays a large role in forcing talented people who have decided to join our country to feel like this isn’t an option for them. We owe them much better.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#224

Post by oblio » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #187

bredren wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is what you took from my post, you’re mistaken. People should not be emotionally abusive. But they are. They attain positions of power. Through reflection you may come to realize they are among people you consider friends or family. You can’t “fix” them, but you can learn how to handle or avoid them. Sometimes, if a person looks inward and into their past they will find a pattern of people who have taken adva…

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.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#225

Post by ddevault » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

carvantes wrote: post #216

ddevault wrote: post #137

If a company's value starts with a "B" (or... ugh... a "T"), they won't care about you. You should not give them anything of your life, because it's worth next to nothing to them. Mega-corps are life sucking leeches on employees, customers, and society as a whole. Everyone. How many horror stories is it going to take? Don't get duped by the glamour. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, none of them are g…

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 options.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#226

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #220

Apocryphon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight is a disinfectant. With transparency, even the largest most aloof company has to grapple to some degree with poor PR and public shaming. Amazon is well-known for having a toxic work culture even beyond its fulfillment centers, thanks to Amazon employees speaking out. And having a high-profile voice- a Tim Bray, a Susan Fowler, is also invaluable. As of yet, there isn't an equivalent to Apple, probably becaus…

I think Tim Bray is going a great service, but I don’t see any ‘disinfecting’ going on. I would like to believe sunlight is a disinfectant, but I have yet to see that in the corporate world. I think the only real ‘disinfectant’ would be the CEO realizing that it’s worth making things better for its own sake, and not just because of bad press.

You're not wrong; we've seen Amazon try to wriggle out of their bad press by simply hiring armies of posters to tweet and blog positive propaganda, rather than actually fixing issues. Sunlight isn't enough, but I still think at least it's one step in the right direction. Better that Amazon has a poor work reputation than no one know about its abuses.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#227

Post by FireBeyond » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

VRay wrote: post #132

busterarm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who recently left Microsoft after a decade and a half. He'd completely drunk the Kool Aid but ended his experience at the company facing more than a year of abuse from a new manager and senior engineer. Very similar to this long post about Apple, unfortunately. He and a couple of other people on his team tried to move to different teams, but despite a long history of excellent work, everyone was treat…

I haven't seen this sort of outright abuse, but I've definitely experienced firsthand at multiple companies a situation where a newcomer needs a ton of tribal knowledge in order to do their job, but the newcomer's team members get miffed every time they're asked a question. So then the newcomer ends up having to do way too much work on his/her own the hard way, it makes everything way harder and less effective, and b…

I totally agree. I'm working on a system now that is the most complex I've ever worked on - managed K8s, OperStack, bare metal - all the provisioning, build and test infrastructure (dealing with nested virtualization, DinD, integrating build tools into tools that do things as low level as PXE boot servers). There's a huge amount of tribal knowledge required and I struggled with this.

Thankfully my manager was open to questions, and patient, it was me "not wanting to be a bother". But I had a meeting with my manager's manager and he talked about how stupid he felt, and understanding that no-one would feel like I was an "anchor" asking the "silly" questions of "Why do we / don't we ..." and persisting through that because everyone had been there.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#228

Post by coldtea » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

meekrohprocess wrote: post #39

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…

I don't think so. I've worked at other FAANG companies which had these sorts of posts written about them, and I've witnessed plenty of situations that I would call "abusive". But what I read in this article was beyond the pale. I never felt like anybody adjacent to any of my roles might have cause to fear for their physical safety. Reviews were used as political tools and occasional sources of psychological abuse, su…

>But what I read in this article was beyond the pale.

Yes, but while I believe it happened just like that, it's too beyond the pale to be representative of Apple at large.

Looks like a particularly, close knit toxic team + gaslighting above levels about the new recruit.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#229

Post by acntr_employee » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #151

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. This has been my experience as well. Nowadays I work hard only while most of the following are true: - I'm making top dollar (good salary + equity value is high) - Work is interesting (somethin…

Throwaway for obvious reasons

I work for a company belonging to Accenture.

I can only agree. Shareholders get +10%. Employees get nil.

It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation. Project manager promises everything the client asks for. Even if they know we cannot in any universe deliver this without massive overtime. At the same time they introduce new mandatory processes to follow costing additional time.

Performance management is a joke. Employee development non existent. Promotion and raises have nothing to do with performance. If managing directors do not like you, you are out of luck as they ultimately decided on your salary, promotion and bonuses.

I am still there because I can only switch jobs after Sept 2021 for private reasons.

After that it is jobhunting season.

If anyone is of the opinion that you do not deserve adequate pay, can be bullied by project managers or others - do yourself a favor and look for another company that does value you.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#230

Post by coldtea » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

arcatech wrote: post #177

lordnacho wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for most people the question is whether there are reasons to think Apple's internal environment fosters this kind of behaviour. You can imagine a company of that size has a huge number of teams, some where everything is just dandy, some with terrible issues like yours and the author's. But is there something corporate-wide about Apple that makes you think what you went through was common, or the opposite (ie…

The internal culture was influenced by Steve Jobs. He was widely known for being an asshole who also happened to be an excellent salesman with a really good design sense. That's Apple.

Sure, but I've never read an as-toxic Jobs story / exchange, as the things in this story...