Apple

Software engineers are evaluated on the following 3 axes:

This is how collaborative you have been and how able you are to improve processes and projects and meetings. Make sure that you're skilled at bringing many different voices together to get a high rating here, especially at senior levels.

This is your project impact. Show your ability to improve the user experience and deliver high-quality execution on time.

Innovation covers your ability to come up with new solutions and creatively identify opportunities within your team and organization.

At a broader level, Apple is striving to weave "Diversity And Inclusion" into each of the above 3 axes.

Example: If you're able to ensure that underrrepresented voices in tech are able to be heard in your meetings, you would get rewarded more on the "Teamwork" axis.

All feedback at Apple is written in a free-form style. Writing style will vary based on manager and team.

Self Review

In your self-review, you cover your project impact and good engineering behaviors, all anchored to Apple's 3 performance axes. It asks you to expand on your future career development goals, but it doesn't make sense to talk about that too much as you're limited to just 2,500 characters.

Peer Feedback

Your manager will automatically request feedback from your immediate teammates, so think about which peers you can request feedback from outside your team. There is a limit of 5 for these peer feedback requests.

Unlike the self-review, there is no limit for peer feedback length.

Visibility

All feedback is loosely anonymized when being shared with you. You can probably reverse-engineer who wrote each one from their writing style and the content they covered.

Every year, your compensation is increased across the following 3 axes:

• Base salary: You get a raise.
• More RSUs: You get a refresher grant that gives you more equity.
• Bonus: You get a one-time cash payment. This is limited to 10% of your base salary.

Your performance is correlated to pay increases, but the formula is very secret at Apple.

As long as you're getting ME on all 3 axes, you should be safe from a PIP or performance-based firing. As a whole, Apple is more relaxed on the performance-side compared to other FAANG companies.

The promotion process at Apple isn't ultra formal - It occurs alongside the Annual Review process. There's no nomination required: In fact, you can even get promoted without coordinating with your manager if the calibration committee thinks you're doing very well.

Since your manager is going to be making the case for your promotion, it's important to make sure that they're very in-sync with what you're doing and what your accomplishments are. To give your manager the best tools possible to go to bat for you with the promotion committee, make sure your self-review is incredibly thorough by following the techniques in this video: Making The BEST Case For Yourself In Performance Review: The Self Review

Here are some average promotion speeds for Apple:

• ICT2 (Junior) -> ICT3 (Mid-Level): 2 years
• ICT3 (Mid-Level) -> ICT4 (Senior): 4 years

The ICT5 (Staff) promotion is extremely difficult. Many engineers get perfect reviews (Exceeds Expectations on all 3 axes for a score of 9) repeatedly at ICT4 and don't get promoted. It is normal to be at ICT4 for 10+ years.

For resources on getting to staff, check out these FAANG engineer discussions:

• "What does a path to staff look like in a coding-heavy environment?"
• "I would like to get more clarity on what a Staff-level project and execution look like."