My vague impression is that working at Apple gives you more prestige with the general public than Google or Facebook. Google has a geeky (well, even geekier) aura, and people don't like Facebook like they like Apple.
While I know a lot of people who have Apple devices and like using them, I know even more people who use Google on a daily basis. So my own vague impression is that Apple and Google are about the same, with maybe an edge to Google.
Our brains can only superimpose our romantic fantasies over reality for so long. One romantic fantasy would be "I'm cool because I work at Apple". I can't see a talented person working somewhere for more than a year or two unless they genuinely were satisfied with the job and environment. Money isn't the only thing that motivates people.
Well, in some ideal technical world, they wouldn't care what people think of their company, and they wouldn't care about their salary either. They'd just work at the place with the most interesting stuff going on. But most people do care at least a bit about those external factors, whether it's money or social prestige.
First, suppose Google has value 'x' in terms of signaling to the opposite sex, Apple has value 'y'. The x is already high, as Google has the reputation of a) paying well (whether justified or not) b) hiring the smartest. Women are attracted to intelligence. Now suppose Apple does have a cool factor, there's only an x - y difference in signaling.
You spend majority of your waking hours at work, so the perceived margin has to be very high to justify taking a less satisfying job, but which has higher signaling potential.
For a perceived margin to be high either a) the actual margin is high b) the person has to perceive \epsilon of social status much higher than \epsilon of job satisfaction. Generally, the people who value social status are almost by definition not going to work hard enough to become "half-decent (or better) engineers".
This also ignores the fact that most adults are either already in long term relationships or are celibate (voluntarily or involuntarily). "Looking for a girlfriend/boyfriend" is a temporary state, unless you're really interested in the dating game as a hobby which likely means less time for other hobbies e.g., hacking.
In my case, I'm in a long term relationship, having met my girlfriend while working in a nameless start-up doing email security (hardly "sexy", but plenty of technical challenges that I'd never see where I to work on "yet another app"). She could care less what the name of the company I work for is anyway.
So we're left with several logically valid conclusions:
* Apple hires worse engineers: people who are too interested in status to devote time to studies, people who are more interested in "playing the dating game" rather than fulfilling their passion. Typing this on a MacBook Pro, I see no evidence of this.
* Marginal signaling is really a lot better at Apple than Google. I can't see any evidence of that. Both are household names. Google has a reputation for hiring best, Apple has a reputation for building quality products (implying, hiring best).
* The quality of work is roughly equivalent at Apple and Google and decisions are often made by factors such as one offering work that the other doesn't, etc... People love working for both and only a minority is leaving either to work on "hotter" but less technically challenging applications.
I'll leave judgment for the reader, but something (perhaps reason?) is telling me latter is the case.
Exactly where I was going. As a crude generalization, working at Google signals that you're really smart, and working at Apple signals that you're a cool guy/girl who also happens to be smart. For most social situations and especially in attracting members of your preferred sex, the second image is better.
