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Lots of potential, but stuck in the past

Senior Staff Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Apple for 2 years
October 17, 2025
Seattle, Washington
3.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Excellent offices, good cafe, good pay, decent work-life balance, and interesting problems to solve, if you can get to do them.

Cons

Extreme (and largely useless) secrecy makes it difficult to get anything done. The "Apple way" of doing things is by plucking some people from separate teams that specialize in something and sort of mushing them together as a virtual team. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: those teams can really deeply specialize in a narrow sub-field, and as such deliver insights and results that generalists can't deliver. You can see this in Apple products every day. Disadvantage: this works only on the hardware side. On the software side, I would much rather have teams of capable generalists working on products, but with the ability (and requirement) to reach out to specialists when needed. That would work way better than the "Apple way" works today.

Advice to Management

Consider seriously reorganizing the way you work on software, especially on AI software.

Consider allowing the internal use of AI coding and code review aids.

I'm a believer in Apple, and seeing how the sausage is made there only bolstered my beliefs. There are lots of people there who really care. It'd be a shame if Apple permanently fell off the wagon, which it might if it doesn't adapt.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
4.0
Culture and Values
4.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
5.0
Career Opportunities
3.0
Compensation and Benefits
5.0
Senior Management
3.0

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