
What It's Like to Work at Apple - rams
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/11/07/what-its-like-to-work-at-apple/
======
novum
_Secrecy: Apple's secrecy is comparable to the U.S. government's in terms of
"need to know" and compartmentalization._

This. My roommate is a hardware engineer on the iPad team, and he won't even
confirm that there will be another iPad. He takes extra precautions when
working at home - he won't take work calls if I'm in the room, and he set up
the furniture in his room in an awkward fashion solely so that his computer
monitor didn't face towards the door.

Several times I've brought friends or family down to Cupertino. He lets us
inside to walk around the inner campus and eat at Caffe Macs, but that's truly
all there is to see. Certainly we can't enter any other buildings on Infinite
Loop.

One thing this article doesn't mention is work-life balance. We live in SF,
and my roommate has a 90-minute commute (each way) on the Apple shuttle, and
he usually works 12 hours on top of that. He's out by 8am and doesn't usually
return until 11pm. He tells me this is a common topic of discussion at Caffe
Macs - the balance between working on groundbreaking technology and, quite
simply, having zero personal time during the week (and often on the weekends).

He can be called to go to China with no more than a few days' notice, and the
duration of his stay there is never known ahead of time. He often estimates
7-10 days but it frequently ends up being closer to 2, even 3 weeks. Apple
covers all of his expenses, of course, but he doesn't much care for Shenzhen.

He really likes working at Apple, but I think he recognizes that it's not a
sustainable job for him for more than 3 or 4 years.

~~~
borski
While I only worked at Apple for about 8 months (started as a summer intern),
I can completely echo this. It's never that we _have_ to stay later, it's that
we _want_ to. You really have a dedication to the product because you want
your customers to love you; that was the overall mindset. With a deadline,
that means you'll do almost anything to meet it and succeed.

As for the secrecy, you're totally right. I roomed with 3 other interns during
the summer and none of us would talk shop, ever. When interviewing for other
companies later, nearly all my answers about what I did at Apple were "I wish
I could talk to you about that, but the most I can do at this point is talk
'around' it, if you will, since that's an unreleased product." Not at all
unlike government secrecy.

All that said, it really was a glorious place to work. I miss a lot about it;
the seemingly infectious excitement and passion for the products was really
driving. I loved being in that environment. :)

~~~
InclinedPlane
An honest question:

Why do you _want_ to work such long days when there is so much evidence that
total productive work per week doesn't increase beyond around 40 hours of work
for most knowledge worker jobs, especially software development?

~~~
chollida1
> when there is so much evidence that total productive work per week doesn't
> increase beyond around 40 hours of work for most knowledge worker jobs

I don't think this is true, though maybe you can find a source to prove it?

What I've often heard and read is that the percentage of work falls off after
a certain amount of hours per week.

or put another way, working 80 hours may not give you a doubling of
productivity over 40 hours but it will increase the amount of productive
output.

~~~
loewenskind
Science says otherwise:
<http://archives.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php>

------
yardie
_Reservists called up to active duty are put into a military-leave status and
they remain Apple employees while Apple makes up the salary difference between
their military pay and their Apple pay until they return._

I wonder if other companies do this. I know by law they are required to keep
those positions for active reserves but I don't think they are required to
continue to pay their salary. In the past, I've worked temp positions for
employees that were deployed.

~~~
jasonjei
That really is above and beyond. Aside from the fact that many companies will
find you completely unattractive if you have Guard/Reserve on your resume,
paying the difference to keep your existing salary while not even at Apple
makes it very military-reserve friendly environment. But you'll probably still
have to weigh the other working environment factors.

(It's even hard for me to convince my investors that I'll be around in case my
Guard unit is deployed.)

~~~
count
Leave Guard/Reserve off your resume in the future, maybe? From what I
understand, it's illegal to consider that during employment decisions anyways.

------
adamesque
I worked at Apple for 5 years (ending in summer '08), and one of the most
amazing things about the experience was how well most people understood the
core vision of the company, even in departments where you wouldn't expect that
– like call center management.

I've worked with other big tech companies and frequently heard people talking
about doing things "more like Apple". It was funny to think that was exactly
the way people inside Apple talked too. Everyone's on board.

------
smiler
Would be great if he had expanded on the 'no career path' section - that will
probably be something that most people want to know about - surely there must
be different levels of developers to some extent? Moving from development to
management?

Any Apple employees on here like to comment?

~~~
nostromo
The way he mentions that Apple HR confirms that there are 'no career paths' at
Apple makes me think he's referring to a more regimented promotion system (a
la GE).

~~~
jonnathanson
This is probably what he means. It's the case at a lot of companies, and
particularly tech companies. There's probably no set rulebook along the lines
of "You will spend X years in Y position in Z department, then you will be
promoted to Y+1, where you will spend another X years until Y+2," etc.

That kind of structured progression seems to be going away in a lot of
industries, with the notable exceptions being the big client-facing industries
(consulting, banking, law, and so forth).

~~~
gamble
If you look at company reviews on glassdoor.com, you'll notice that people
either complain that their company has too many layers of management, or that
there are no opportunities for advancement.

I've never heard anyone claim that Apple is overly bureaucratic.

~~~
jrockway
People have tried to make that claim, but Apple's Reality Distortion Field
picked it up and the guilty parties were taken out back and shot.

Remember that 1984 video? Yeah.

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nhangen
As a former Army Soldier, it was very cool to read the piece about the
military. Props to Apple for taking a strong stand.

------
davidj
A friend of mine worked at Apple as a consultant for a ERP system that ran on
Windows NT and I used to pick him up all the time. They would let me walk
right in no problem. I remember walking across a parking lot where there was a
wine bar where he liked to hang out. Of course this was in 2000 though.

~~~
updog
BJ's is not a wine bar ;)

~~~
krevis
BJ's wasn't there way back in 2000, either, IIRC -- it was the Peppermill.

