Company: Apple
Date: 2017-04-27
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former

On its way down.
Pros: Above average compensation.
Apple prestige for excellent products.
The company may pile in resources to make the deadline.
Cons: 1) Incompetent middle managements, at least in the department I worked.  They lack of technical know-how and leadership, to command the projects and the team. 

2) Low productivity. Since the management does not know how to work smart and efficiently, they had hard time keeping up with the industry. They always sought forcing team to work in a counter-productive way, to constantly work overtime and often doubling resources for the same work (while  still had hard time making the deadline). A good engineer would find his time was mostly wasted on fixing symptoms, doing projects that were never completed or added no value.
 
3) Heavily politicized and lack of integrity. The management defended their incompetence by politicizing and siloing. They refused admitting poor results (let alone listening advices, learning or improving).  They promoted and rewarded their "own guys" who followed their agenda. They coerced (often made up) bad reviews on talent engineers who focused on results. A typical tactics is to make their unfavorables as scapegoats for their own failures.

Overall it's a toxic environment, at least in the engineering portion I worked in. I am not surprised to see fewer innovations from Apple now.  Covering by its secrecy, Apple engineering is on a slippery slope down. 

An advice for potential employees, don't consider internal transfers as a way out. Transfers are very difficult comparing to other companies. Apple is structured for the management best controlling engineers.