Company: Apple
Date: 2018-04-12
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

No longer a creative company
Pros: The benefits are amazing - great health insurance. Um, that's about it.
Cons: When I started at Apple, it was a great place to work - very relaxed and welcoming. The managers I had were creative types who did interesting things after work (musicians, yoga teachers, comic book artists, etc.) and they were supportive and made work a fun place to be. I felt appreciated in the beginning. 

Little by little, though, everything became more corporate. A lot of middle manager types were hired who were obsessed with micro-managing and metrics. It didn't matter seem to matter if you worked really hard, did a good job and pleased your customers if you didn't always hit the required metrics (which were often arbitrary and based on things you had no influence over). Towards the end of my time there, I felt very disheartened and unappreciated every day. 

There is also very little room for growth at the Austin campus unless you are interested in going into management. If you have skills that your team or department values, but you want to build new skills or move to a new department, management will make it very difficult for you to leave. They are not interested in your personal growth.