Apple

Amazingly intelligent and competent people. Always good conversation. Great pay and benefits. Great stability and security. Distractions are there when you want them. AMAZING food and coffee at the Mac Cafe. You get to SOLVE VERY VERY VERY DIFFICULT problems - this is very cool! Groups are relatively small (iTunes Store team - for the entire world - was 9 people + 3 interns); I like smaller groups. Never was forced to work overtime or "bust my hump." Awesome on-site fitness centers and FREE gym classes (yoga, zumba, etc.).

Secrecy is the biggest [issue]. You couldn't talk to your friends about work. You couldn't even talk within YOUR group! In fact, you could be developing a framework for something while your coworker in your group is developing the SAME framework to solve the SAME problem. This felt very wasteful to me, but it was for secrecy.

Further, you're wearing "blinders" regarding everything else: you only touch your piece of the stack – not design, not front-end – only your little piece of the Apple pie.

I like to touch the whole stack and be involved with the whole process. Additionally, with intelligent people come egos, and there are a lot of them at Apple (Bay Area in general, actually). Not much socializing within some groups (varies group to group).

This is in regards to the internship/newly-hired programs. These people are employees, and you have to really manage them at first.

I don't mean watch them program, or breathe down their necks, or god forbid, touch their code. I mean help out more with the lay of the land.

For example:

• Walk people through the important parts of the codebase.
• Inform them of conventions used.
• Tell them when meetings are, etc., etc.

All these things may seem trivial, but when done, they help exponentially!