Company: Apple
Date: 2013-03-12
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

Great at first, but the culture took a nose dive over the years
Pros: - At least when I first started, the culture was amazing.  Creativity was valued and prized.  You were taught interesting things, and given projects that tickled your brain if you were interested.
- The people were, and still are, some of the most amazing people you'll ever work with.
- The managers who are good are absolutely brilliant, amazing, and inspiring.  You'll want to jump off a cliff for them.
- The onsite benefits are pretty rocking.  Cafeteria, very nice gym, lovely campus, onsite Toastmasters group (at least while I was there), various employee organizations and clubs, etc.
- There's a lot of growth, so if you can play the politics game, you have a bright future ahead of you
Cons: As I continued on in my career at Apple, the company grew up and became more corporate.  What does that mean?  Fewer people got promoted from within (preferring instead to get people form the outside, people with MBAs, etc.)
- As good as the benefits are, there were some serious lacks (example: No paternity leave, no paid leave for adoption, no sabbaticals, etc.)
- Very few managers (and certainly almost no upper managers) care about the customer.  They care about the number, but not about the actual customer.
- The pay is okay at best.  They brag that they're solidly average.  This seems counterintuitive for one of the richest companies in the world.  Value your human capital.
- You do have to play politics.  Which often translates to keeping your mouth shut.  Anger the wrong person and you may as well quit because your career there is over.
- A lot of the skills they teach aren't transferrable.  Instead of certifying people in recognized brands (PMP, ASTD, etc.), they prefer to do their own certifications in house, which don't mean anything anywhere else.