Company: Apple
Date: 2009-11-09
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former

Really intense work environment. Unique culture.
Pros: Really interesting work in most areas (very little dull routine).
Outstanding opportunity to work with really smart people in your field.
General helpfulness of colleagues is almost uniformly present across teams.
Really cool leading-edge products and services you can be proud to help develop.
Very intense focus on understanding and helping customers.
Lots of opportunity to become "expert" on a subject for the company.
Financial health of company is excellent. Very good handle on cost management.
Benefits are very good.
Equal opportunity is apparent everywhere. Very diverse workforce.
A truly international company and workforce.
Cons: General rule: You will not know if you really "fit" the culture until about a year on the job.
Managers mostly work higher level projects and negotiate resources and priorities (as opposed to develop their people). Experience of working at Apple is hugely influenced by your direct manager and his/her style. Some buffer the craziness, others amplify it.
Company is now huge but still trying to act lean like a start up. Teams are getting moved off main campus with little regard to who they need to interact with. "Campus"  feeling only applies to core business groups. 
Work-life balance can quickly become terrible for those who really understand systems and processes and how to manage them. The better you are, the less balance you can expect.
Management planning process - continual over-committing continues.
Really stove-piped planning structure. Very little cross-functional planning below VP level. Regular  surprises from project work in other areas for which you had no visibility..
Secrecy bordering on paranoia can be a pain in the neck especially when it delays notice on necessary (and unplanned) changes in other areas.
High turnover in the areas I worked with. Less during the recession. Burn out is common.
Fear of being the team/individual that delays or messes up a project is ever present.
Absolutely no professional development outside a modest number of internal courses. Don't even think about trying to publish a paper, or speak at a conference!
Growing inequity in business team perks and facilities is an annoyance.