Company: Apple
Date: 2008-06-17
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Great products, great engineers, good company growth, with expected growing pains
Pros: Apple makes high-quality products, both inside and out, in that they're considered good by both users and developers. Some aspects of our internals can be ugly, but there's a strong push companywide to create maintainable interfaces and implementations, even those for internal use. We're constantly pushing to create new & better ways of doing things, if no longer in a completely revolutionary manner (seems there just too much legacy software AND mindset out there now). Even so, that drive is present.

We don't have all the perks of other high-profile companies, but hours are flexible, and a new shuttle service makes commuting quite pleasant.

Apple is big enough that you can find a work & management environment that fits your temperament.
Cons: Management is extremely secretive, even internally, and it's only becoming more so. That said, I can see why looking at the marketplace. Apple's operating in a new world, and we can't just talk about what we're working on any more.

Internal resource allocation is very stingy; it's hard to have enough equipment to work properly on multiple releases & test system-level things that sometimes require a 2nd machine of similar specs.

Work level tends to go in a roller-coaster, with long crunches before releases, but that's typical for the industry, really. Overall project management seems to be declining in recent years, which is rather worrisome.

I've been frustrated by some general communication problems in my department and difficulties making time for professional growth at the company, but it's something I could probably get past if I took more initiative in the matter.

We are REALLY overcrowded and getting more so. Many people are doubled up in offices, the on-campus cafe is overloaded every day at lunchtime, and the new campus shows no signs of coming along.