Company: Apple
Date: 2013-10-10
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Program Manager IS&T
Pros: Great learning experience, fast paced, potential exposure to some really cool projects/products. Lots of neat employee focused events. There are the beer bashes, the occasional bands that show up to play at 1 infinite loop, the cafeterias have really good food (it's not free, but the quality is excellent - if you have a chance try the gelato in the IL cafe), bus service for employees throughout the bay area (has Wi-Fi and very comfortable leather seats), employee discounts on products, casual attire (as is the case with many tech companies in the bay area), free StarBucks coffee, on site oil changes, car washes, haircuts,  on campus gyms, shuttle service between buildings throughout Cupertino, employee stock purchase plan, good health benefits...just to name a few.

It's an amazing bullet point on your resume - opens up doors that may not be otherwise open. If you are in the right group, you can bank on stock, bonuses and other perks. Also, depending on the group, there are a ton of extremely brilliant and dedicated employees that foster a phenomenal collaborative culture. A few years at Apple can change the overall trajectory of your career. If you can hang at Apple, you can make it anywhere else. If you find the right group, it could quite possibly be the best place to work. So, do your homework on the group you are joining (stay away from IS&T). 

Lastly, telling people you work at Apple always gets a lot of attention - the brand recognition is amazing.
Cons: As with any company, there are parts of it that are amazing, and then parts that are not as amazing. IS&T falls in the 'not so amazing' category. Employee development is mediocre at best, pay is lacking and the charm of stock is elusive.  There are a lot of fiefdoms, a lot of obscure politics, and parts of the organization lack the Apple culture that you would expect or hear while on the outside. A director, having come from another bay area company, had hired others within management from the same bay area company. There seemed to be quite a bit of favoritism within this clique - didn't look like people moved up the ladder if they weren't a part of the clique. 

Working from home is generally frowned upon and discouraged. The occasional working from home is ok but the expectatation is that you are in the office  (why else would you build a multi-billion dollar HQ?). 

IS&T heavily relies on outsourced vendors to do the heavy lifting and this can grow frustrating as you spend most of your time interacting with non-Apple employees. As a result of this, the diversity is lacking and there is an endless line of replaceable Indian resources. It's very impersonal at times - if you don't like one of them, pick another, like a box of infinite tissues. Constantly working with replaceable resources prevents one from developing any meaningful working relationships. There are stretches where you hardly interact with other 'badged' Apple employees. Many in management have moved over to Apple from one of these vendors, and bring with them a different work culture which at times takes away from the Apple culture. Apparently, it's ok for customers to email Tim Cook, or Steve Jobs when he was around, but god forbid that an employee emails an executives admin (not even an executive, but their admin) inquiring about the most benign of things. Hell shall break loose, and you will forever be marked as "that guy". All of a sudden, the backside of the fence doesn't seem to be painted as nicely as the front side. 

Performance reviews are an absolute joke. If you are too technical and lack the business/management aspects they will tell you that you need to grow your business acumen and management capabilities. If your strengths are management but you lack technical skills, they will tell you that you need to strengthen your technical skills.  Needless to say, there is next to no process in place, or employee development to help you grow in whatever area they think you need focus on. This is just a tactic - draw attention to your weaknesses then provide no means to improve them, thus justifying your paltry merit increase. While you are told you will get a bonus, additional stock - if you aren't in the right group or have the right 'people managers' batting for you, you are screwed. Many in management have no business being managers as they do absolutely nothing to help those under them grow professionally.  At the end of the day, it's an attitude of 'be grateful, you work for Apple'...unfortunately, this just isn't enough justification to stick around long term for some. 

IS&T also has this extremely poor and chaotic funding process for capital projects. It may have worked very smoothly when Apple was much smaller, but it does not scale well at all and creates absolute mayhem. It's a process that begs the need for a six sigma type approach to correct it, or get a bunch of consultants (real consultants, not offshore) in there to help streamline it. Many of the challenges they face, such as a diluted culture resulting from an overabundance of offshore resources can be directly attributed to a poor planning and funding process. Also, projects that are deemed 'sexy' are the ones that get approved, the ones that are on senior managements presentations, and the ones that you have to be a part of to really get any recognition. If you are on an 'operational' project', even those that are business critical, and it's not a 'sexy' project - you will more than likely be sidelined when it comes to merit increases/performance reviews.