Company: Apple
Date: 2016-04-28
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Ambiguity Is Everything
Pros: Apple is an incredible company to work for. They are very supportive with your professional development and provide a great culture to meet awesome people and work with genuinely kind and bright folk. 

It feels good to work for a company that cares about the right things such as the environment, human/civil rights, security, and privacy. They don't just say it's their mission or their vision, they really do care and put in a ton of effort to support the causes that are important to them. 

- 401k matching (varies based upon employment duration)
- Healthcare is 5 stars A+ incredible!
- Vacation time accrual is solid, but could be better (varies based upon employment duration and corporate vs retail)
- Sick time accrual is also solid, but could be accrue faster (half the rate of vacation)
- Stock options
- Educational assistance for students
- Adoption grant
- Maternity leave
- Paternity leave
- Family care leave
- Discounts on Apple products
- Discounts on third party products, accessories, and software
Cons: I have worked on the retail side and currently work on the corporate side and the one thing that is consistent is the ambiguity. This isn't necessarily bad, but it's the culture. If you can't adapt, if you can't evolve, and if you can't do it fast, then maybe Apple isn't for you. There is no hand holding, there is no roadmap to success, there is no path forward. If you want to go anywhere with Apple, you better pioneer it yourself and let others know you are doing it and maybe, just maybe, you'll get where you want to go. Like I said, it's ambiguous, so it's hard to say that if you do all the right things then 2+2 will always = 4 because that is not the case. 

- No bonuses or employee recognition (unless you count free t-shirts and water bottles)
- No clear path to promotion/transfer
- No work/life balance for retail employees