Company: Apple
Date: 2018-10-24
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Come for the Company, Stay for the Honeymoon, Leave for a Career
Pros: -Unique culture
-Valuable experience and development opportunities
-Managers (at my retail location) genuinely care about your personal welfare and career development (even if its outside of Apple, long term)
-Outstanding, comprehensive benefits, even available to part time employees...... if they apply to you (i.e. married parent, sick, travel a lot)
-Huge discounts on company and partner products and services
-Work life balance is taken very seriously (although salaried retail managers or corporate staff may tell a different story).
-Wholesomely aggressive commitment to company values (accessibility, environment, diversity, etc.)
Cons: -Great starting pay, but not enough for the city. Many of my single teammates who are 35-40 still need several roommates to make it by. While city market pay is higher than rural markets, it is nowhere near enough. While you do receive yearly performance based raises, they do not keep up with the high city cost of living.
-Retail and corporate are fundamentally two different companies. You don't have your "foot in the door". The only clear way to transition to a corporate opportunity is through highly selective "Career Experiences" which are literally internal temp jobs for temporary quarterly corporate needs. To just qualify, a store leader must endorse you, and you must be full time and high performing in your role. There's no internal way to really contact corporate recruiters for internships (if you're a college student) or full time opportunities. Not even your Store Leader or Market Leader knows people; you're in a walled garden.
-Human Resources is very self-congratulatory and cult-like. Executive level HR staff hold town halls to field questions every year or so (90% of which pertain to lack of comparable compensation) just to offset everyone's living concerns with "it's a privilege to work here."
-Bonuses come in the form of 3 year period RSUs; you have to stay with the company for three years for the RSU to vest and thus cash out. Only management and up receive comparable cash bonuses. Every year after measily raises come out, you may get a lousy $100 cash bonus to make you feel better. Some high performance quarters you may also receive a $100 bonus. Don't spend it all in one place.
-Because of this, many tenured staff leave to other high paying tech companies in Boston (FormLabs, HubSpot, Chewy, Wayfair) to continue their career because they get capped at roughly $45k without staying 5-10 more years or going into management. That looks good on paper but is the bare bone minimum in Boston.