Company: Apple
Date: 2008-07-03
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current

Ideal place to work:  cutting-edge innovation, enthusiastic and capable colleagues, enlightened management.
Pros: The work is cutting-edge, fast paced and interesting, my colleagues are enthusiastic and capable and management is really excellent:  mentors and leaders, not tyrants or bureaucrats.  

I noticed the difference in morale immediately when I first walked into the company.  People looked relaxed and like they were having fun.  Contrast with some of my previous companies where people were walking around with frozen faces or hunched over in cubicles;  the atmosphere was like a labor camp.  Give credit to the management at Apple:  this high morale doesn't happen by accident.  Managers here respect the engineers, and  help them to get the job done.  Questions are encouraged and ideas are rewarded.  I've worked for enlightened managers in good teams in previous companies, but it never seemed to last:  they lost out in the unending political infighting and they were soon replaced or their projects were disbanded.  Here I see the exact opposite.
Cons: It makes me regret not having come here much earlier.