Company: Apple
Date: 2012-08-05
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Empowering, fast paced, great place to grow career - but No personal life = unsustainable
Pros: Empowered to make big business decisions even at the lowest level within the company.  Every company has red tape, but Apple seems to have a lot less of it.  GREAT management (how often do you hear that).You get to work on the most interesting and state of the art consumer products, and once you're here it really drives you... Since you see the direct result of your hard work.  Despite the secrecy legend, I think Apple does a good job at letting employees see the big picture because it enables folks to be more effective.  They really make you feel special with excellent compensation, shuttles that navigate thru brutal silicon valley traffic, etc.  that being said this is an extremely expensive area to live, so it's not going to be easy to find an affordable place to purchase .... But renting is no issue.
Cons: I think because of the strict work schedules (ie, working from home is frowned upon) combined with the brutal amount of work and hours you need to put in here this is a really burnout job where your health and personal life will be severely challenged.  Most of the people in Ops are new for a reason.  Management knows it is an issue but "can't seem to figure out how to solve it" which in a nutshell means they are sympathetic but unwilling to do anything real about it.   Your work and personal life will know no boundaries...  Except calls daily during dinner with the family, don't try and go see a movie after work, calls at night with Asia teams, and never feel like you can "unplug" .   High Stress.