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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

831–840 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#831

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For a PhD level position, she should have had a good idea of what she would be working on. The fact that her manager skipped her on-boarding meeting should have been a BIG red flag right at the beginning. I cannot imagine a corporate culture where that would be acceptable or even permitted.

None of that is a big deal or red flag. At a large intense company things come up, meetings get missed. New people will float around for awhile until there’s time to fit them in. It’s very much sink or swim and a test of how adaptable/self sufficient you are. People at those kinds of companies don’t have time for hand holding - it’s just how it is. If you can get hired by Apple there of plenty of less intense compani…

Having worked for a Fortune 50 company, I can say that management at all levels considered on-boarding to be of critical importance, and would preempt other normal business. It was very important to make sure the new hire had a place to sit, a phone, and a computer as soon as they arrived. Meeting your new manager (as scheduled) is extremely important to a new hire. If the manager doesn't show, it makes a bad first impression on the new employee.

All of that being said, I will now relate that I NEVER attended the new hire orientation meeting at that company. I was on business travel and I never rescheduled it. It did not seem to matter much for me though as I stayed there for most of my career (35 years).

Re: My Experience at Apple

#833
post #394

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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 would suspect that finding out how many employees throughout the hierarchy have been there for a long time may be a good way to find a good company. The company I work for got acquired a couple years ago by a much older and larger company, and it usually feels like anyone you talk to has been there for 15, 20, even 30 years. I've yet to have a single issue with someone in that part of the parent organization, even…

My employer is like this - I'm the second newest person on my team and I've been here for 9 years. It's a great place to work and quite difficult to be hired here.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#835
post #780

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> If done properly Any guidelines? What to think about

First and foremost, a safe (team) environment. This has to be created over time and there are few shortcuts. In addition, for each experiment you need: a defined time window, up front criteria by which to judge the results, optionally form solution ideas together, give all teams the same amount of time and opportunity, after the experiment is finished each team presents their solution in a fact based manner in perspe…

Thanks!

> After this the teams rotate and see what they can improve on their original solution

Interesting idea

Re: My Experience at Apple

#836
post #49

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What org was that in? IS&T? I am thinking that this story by OP was in IS&T because that is known to be the worst org in Apple

Yeah, really. My last contract was with Apple Online Store which was part of IS&T. IT WAS HORRIBLE. I wasn't working at the time (because of my previous mistreatment by Apple) and my "friend" was a manager in the org and he had a contract for me. It supposedly involved development with microservices, Docker, Ansible, etc. Turns out, he was a pathological liar and that was just his pet project that went nowhere from d…

20 year ex-Apple here.

I suspect there is more to this individual’s story, but IS&T is truly horrible. It’s full of fiefdoms built on tier 1 consultants (H1-Bs who are treated horribly).

Apple Retail and IS&T clash horribly, projects run over by years and tens of millions of dollars. Seating is beyond inadequate. There is very little very that is redeeming about IS&T, especially when compared to the other organizations within Apple (Apps, iOS, macOS, coreOS, hell, even iCloud).

Re: My Experience at Apple

#840

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That’s just not true. Arthur Andersen originally spun off its consulting arm into “Andersen Consulting” under a global holding company. AA did accounting, AC consulting. AC paid AA 15% of its profits every year. But AC was growing far faster than AA, so AA started growing another consulting arm, which was against the contract. AC partners claimed contractual breach, and as part of the separation settlement had to cha…

Here is another AC story for you: I worked at a bank in the late 90s, on a crunch y2k project that was instigated because AC knowingly installed a non-y2k compliant set of core systems in about 1997, and didn't pass on the vendor's warnings about y2k to the bank management. The AC project (which ran about 93-97) went kinda rogue, the bank management lost control of the situation. The AC project managers kept bringing…

Wow. That's ridiculous. Problem with non y2k version was exactly what? Just compatibility with year 2000 to be recognized as valid year? Thanks for replies all!
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