Apple

• Good pay and benefits package, for example, comprehensive medical insurance including dental.
• The RSUs vest on a six-monthly basis.
• Personal discount is 27%, and there is a discount for friends and family too.

I cannot speak for other Apple orgs; this is just the experience in Apple Pay:

• Archaic engineering: Inverted test pyramid, manual release cycle (a three-week manual release cycle for cloud services!), poor code quality with very little test coverage, and an aversion to normal engineering conventions like CI/CD. There is aggressive pushback from “leaders” on CI/CD because they don’t know what it is. Functionally organized (teams of devs, SREs, DBAs, etc.) leading to poorly architected software. This also means that developers are treated as code monkeys. Single developers are put on projects or own services individually. There is no documentation.

• Archaic management: Managers make derogatory remarks about their wives (and other topics), and this attitude is then reflected in how they treat female colleagues. Blatant favoritism in management means opportunities are unfairly distributed to a few. Escalating issues about unacceptable remarks and discriminatory behavior yielded no change. Managers continue engineering (and usually do so with outdated engineering knowledge), which results in them encroaching on what should be individual contributors’ domains, and the software suffers as a result. There is no attention to career opportunities or line report well-being. Favoritism extends down the management chain (so one favorite promotes another favorite, etc.), so there’s no managerial competence or accountability. The managers were highly insecure and would shut down critical analysis.

• Hyper-individualistic: As above, single developers owning single services. Tickets can only be assigned/viewed by individuals sometimes. Teamwork is not valued, and yet there is no individual autonomy as managers will make technical decisions. There is no attention whatsoever to team dynamics or formation in general.

• Potential brain drain in Apple Pay engineering, as hiring managers tend to favor experience similar to their own (aka like hires like). Competent and high-performing engineers are rare or beaten down into submission. Engineering knowledge and experience are not favored, but assimilation is. The role leveling cannot be trusted, as it is subject to huge bias, favoritism, and lack of actual performance management. This therefore makes for a deeply unfair working environment.

• “It’s not just Black Lives Matter, all lives matter.” - An Apple Pay Diversity Lead.

• A culture of fear: Huge egos, longtime Apple employees who fear change, and an extremely hierarchical structure means that fresh ideas and honest feedback are never discussed, either with regards to team/people processes or engineering processes, because there is no safe space to do so.

• No transparency in pay and promotions processes (aka the process does not exist; managers simply promote their favorites regardless of skillset).

Don’t let the FAANG label obscure your instincts. Apple Pay has management and engineering that are 20 years behind modern-day standards, and they have shown no willingness to change. I strongly urge women, in particular, to think twice about joining this institution.

Given Apple Pay does not care about the above issues so long as they’re profitable, this is more for those looking to join Apple Pay or those who are in it and feel isolated in their experiences. You’re not alone! Join a trade union and share your workplace experiences with your peers.