I imagine these orgs will be safer from layoffs right? I'm interested in AI/ML fairness, but I have some reservations about pivoting there as they won't directly produce revenue for Apple.

Is it better to work in revenue-generating divisions within your company?

It seems at Apple that getting promoted past ICT4 can take ages. My manager has 3x my YOE and many reports, but we're both ICT4. There is no leveling rubric that I can find, so it's unclear to me what differentiates an ICT5 from an ICT4 here. I'm thinking it might even just be worth abandoning the promo goal for the duration I work here, then aim to be hired into a promo at the next gig in a few years.

I’m nervous about joining since my past internships were very relaxed and I didn’t actually do much coding. The probation period makes me think that it may be more “sink or swim” when I join. How can I ensure I get enough support and survive the probation period?

I’m starting at Apple with a 3 month probation as a new grad. How should I think about the probation period?

My future manager asked me to read “Effective Java” as preparation for starting. However, it’s really not making sense to me. I have a fear that they’ll ask me how much I understood from the book. How should I answer the question without making myself look bad?

Future manager gave me a programming book to read and I’m having a hard time actually learning it.

A lot of examples of growing to Staff are more oriented around less technical fundamental/soft skills, including the examples in Taro. However, I'm unsure how to find this scope in my team, and I don't think that kind of behavior works to get to Staff at Apple overall. I spend ~90% of my time coding, and the culture is more top-down at Apple compared to a company like Meta.

Given all that, how can it be possible for me to grow to Staff? Are there paths to Staff that are heavily technical?

What does a path to staff look like in a coding-heavy environment?

I'm working on a part-time master's degree in Computer Science while being employed. My goal is primarily just to learn for fun, but I'm wondering if there are any career advantages?

Is it worth getting a Master's degree in CS?

I've had a lot of friends tell me that they didn't negotiate their offer, so I'm wondering whether it makes sense to negotiate. What are the costs of trying - Is it possible to lose anything if you try to negotiate and fail?

Mid-Level Software Engineer [ICT3] at Apple

Recently, I have found myself just working on the tasks and investigating the bugs that my manager tells me to. However, from a performance perspective this would be considered "meeting expectations" at best. How do I develop a nose for impact and introduce new, innovative ideas to my team that really improve our product or development workflow?

How do I come up with innovative, impactful ideas and bring them to my team?

My manager is relatively inexperienced (<1 year as a manager, and only a few more years of overall work experience than me). While they have a lot of expertise as a developer in the domain that we work on, when coming them to my previous manager, I don’t think that they have a ton of experience in growing and promoting people, esp. in a deliberate or structured way.
How do I make sure that I continue growing, and receive the right growth opportunities and constructive feedback?

I am a SWE with a few years of experience looking to get promoted to senior-level. A few months ago I switched to a team that works on an area of CS that I do not have much prior experience in, and it is becoming evident that having that domain knowledge is critical to succeeding in this new role. My development velocity has been slow (I don’t have prior experience with the programming language that the team uses either) and I’ve struggled to build trust with people on my team. How do I turn the ship around quickly and succeed in this new position?

Recently switched teams and finding myself struggling in the new role

Is it effective when doing this as a tech worker? I'm also wondering how it varies by company type.

Is it common for people to supplement learning with outside resources like books/courses?

Freedom and autonomy are often mentioned as great perks of working in tech, but I feel like there can be too much freedom, especially for earlier-in-career ICs. As someone who's relatively new to my field, I feel like having more supervision could be good. Is that true?

How much support should junior folks at Big Tech companies get?

I'm exploring other paths in tech, including SWE. For the software engineers out there, I would love to understand why you do what you do: What's the main thing that keeps you going?

What is the most rewarding thing about being a software engineer?

I come from a non-Computer Science background, and I'm exploring other paths in tech, one of which is software engineering.

I have a vision of a software engineer working on the same piece of logic daily: Is that what it's like and if so, can that get lonely? Or is that actually what most SWE love and find exciting?

Does it get lonely working as a software engineer?

I'm trying to learn more about the different career trajectories in tech. I come from a data science background, and I'm interested in the software engineering path. It would be nice to understand what my life would look like if I were to make the switch.

For a junior engineer, what’s the proportion of time spent coding vs. non-coding tasks?

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company that specializes in consumer electronics, software and online services headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States.

Apple

Data Scientist

- **Short answer:** No.
- **Longer answer:** Possibly, but it's not worth heavily warping your mentality around your goals and preferences to fit yourself into these organizations.
- The layoff thing may be true, but there's the other axis of performance, especially among more senior people who should be more flexible with team switching.
- A lot of founders are also very forward thinking and will prioritize non-revenue orgs/products as they're confident it will raise revenue very later on down the road. Several of the most successful founders (Bezos, Zuckerberg) are like this.
- At the end of the day, all the micro-optimization of joining an org safer from layoffs is cancelled out if you are joining a space you aren't too passionate about. *The main thing to optimize for is finding a team and work you enjoy!* If you've been on your current team for a while and want to switch into something you feel like you would have more passion for, I recommend pursuing it if possible.
- AI/ML fairness is an extremely noble and important space IMHO, and it will be 5x more important in 10 years. Seems like a good thing to go after to me!

Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal

Alex Chiou

Layoffs are the temporary suspension or permanent termination of a group of employees for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization.

Is it better to work in revenue-generating divisions within your company?

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Apple