[HN Gopher] Some Apple Engineers Rewarded Up to $180K in Stock B...
___________________________________________________________________
Some Apple Engineers Rewarded Up to $180K in Stock Bonuses as
Incentive to Stay
Author : purplesnowflake
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-12-28 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| uejfiweun wrote:
| Pretty much everyone I know who worked in Software at Apple had a
| bad experience. The common refrain was that engineers are treated
| like crap at apple, and it's the designers who get all the glory.
|
| It makes me excited for the future of software engineering to see
| moves like this. Clearly Apple, and many other companies, are
| starting to understand just how critical devs are to a modern
| business. And they are finding that to get good devs, you have to
| treat devs well too, in order to compete with companies like
| Google & Meta. My bet: salaries, especially for experienced
| engineers, continue to skyrocket.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| FWIW, the Apple software devs I know really enjoy their jobs.
| They all agree that it's not easy work, but I don't know anyone
| there who claims mistreatment. Small sample size, of course.
|
| > It makes me excited for the future of software engineering to
| see moves like this. Clearly Apple, and many other companies,
| are starting to understand just how critical devs are to a
| modern business.
|
| As a counterpoint, some of the highest paid non-FAANG jobs I
| had had some of the worst treatment of engineers. The high
| salaries were used to compensate for the terrible treatment and
| make it harder for employees to leave. In one case, many of us
| left and gladly took lower compensation at other companies just
| to get out. And of course, the jobs were immediately backfilled
| with new people eager to cash in on the high salaries. Money is
| an easy way to fill seats, but treating people well is the only
| way to keep them there.
| zffr wrote:
| As a former engineer in SWE, I don't think there was
| mistreatment, but I definitely felt like designers were
| treated (slightly)better. At the minimum they seemed to have
| better snacks back in Infinite Loop!
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Designers have often get some nice amenities to make up for
| less pay than SWEs. Design managers also seem to be more
| emphatic and experienced.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I worked in software & hardware engineering at Apple, we don't
| know one another, and nothing you cite as the common refrain
| was true anywhere around our world. We were treated
| excellently, and I loved it. (Quit for a science job far away,
| total non sequitur, not because of Apple)
| ozzythecat wrote:
| This is a recurring theme of posts that authoritatively
| attempt to describe the "hopeless" working conditions of
| highly compensated employees at big tech company <X>.
|
| I've been at one of the FAANGs for about 7 years. I've been
| on some amazing teams but also my share of office bs and
| difficult people.
|
| From reading HN's characterization of my work environment,
| I'm depressed, completely stressed out, and everyone I work
| with is a horrible human being.
|
| I mean, if I wasn't depressed before, I'm more likely to be
| depressed after reading some of these posts.
|
| As much as folks on even this site rally against FB, the
| constant stream of negativity or opinions - on why we should
| all hate X or why Y is evil - is easily found even here on
| HN.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| If the designers get all the glory... sign me up! Maybe I'm
| naive, but designing UI stuff is a lot less stressful than
| making things actually work.
| double_nan wrote:
| Designers and PMs. Apple is being ran by designers and PMs.
| Which is not really a bad thing from users point of view.
| richiezc wrote:
| I'm under the impression that EPM is more of a project
| management role than a traditional PM role given how tops
| down Apple is?
| hu3 wrote:
| > Apple is being ran by designers and PMs.
|
| That explains the state of Xcode and WWDC-driven
| documentation.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > _Apple is being ran by designers and PMs_
|
| The nice thing about being run by PMs is that products and
| feature ship.
|
| I joke bitterly with my friends at Google who can't seem to
| consistently deliver anything outside of their existing
| cash-cows.
| double_nan wrote:
| That is true. It has its own downsides as well. Like
| extremely outdated and bad tech in the areas not visible
| to the higher ups.
| astrange wrote:
| Apple doesn't have PMs. SWE has EPMs but they have no
| power.
| baxtr wrote:
| Apple has product managers?
| zffr wrote:
| Parent commenter might mean EPMs (engineering program
| managers). They are basically project managers and keep
| software releases on time. They do tend to hold a lot of
| power at apple.
|
| I don't think I have never come across an actual
| _product_ manager at apple. Design tends to make on most
| of that responsibility
| baxtr wrote:
| Exactly. Design and Eng as far as I know. Project
| managers is a whole different thing...
| eigen wrote:
| > Apple has product managers?
|
| hiring so many project managers.
|
| https://jobs.apple.com/en-
| us/search?search=pm&sort=relevance...
| baxtr wrote:
| Project vs Product
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I never worked at Apple, but I've been an Apple developer,
| since they were a pretty scruffy outfit, and everyone was
| waiting for them to go belly-up.
|
| From my perspective, Apple has always treated their engineers
| quite well. Guy Kawasaki once said that "Working for Apple is
| like being paid to go to Disneyland."
|
| It may no longer be the case, but I have always assumed that
| engineers at Apple have always felt valued.
| sincerely wrote:
| So you've never worked for Apple but think people should know
| what you imagine people at Apple think?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> So you 've never worked for Apple but think people
| should know what you imagine people at Apple think?_
|
| I thought we didn't post personal attacks on HN.
|
| That was uncalled-for.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Seems like an attack on your qualification to make that
| statement, not you yourself
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I _clearly, and unambiguously_ spelled out my
| qualification (30+ years of working with very happy Apple
| engineers), and also clearly stated that I have never
| worked there, myself.
|
| I was _extremely_ careful not to write in a
| confrontational manner. It was merely a vague statement,
| of my own personal PoV, based on a _great deal_ of
| personal experience (I 've been writing Apple software
| since 1986). Much of that time was spent, working for
| very respected corporations that had a close working
| relationship with Apple engineering. I spent a great deal
| of time, working directly with Apple engineers and
| managers.
|
| It doesn't escape my notice that _lots_ of other folks
| that haven 't worked for Apple have been more than happy
| to post their opinions, here.
|
| Apple seems to be a bit of a lightning rod. I can tell
| you that anyone that has developed for them, as long as I
| have, has become quite used to torrents of abuse. I can't
| even imagine what Apple employees had to go through
| (actually, I can, because they told me).
|
| I have to add that I have never had any interaction with
| either of you two folks, yet your _very first_
| interaction with me, was an attack.
|
| That may fly on Facebook or Twitter, but it may be ...
| _less than ideal_ ... in a professional environment
| (which I definitely consider HN). Note that I make it
| absolutely clear who I am, how to get in touch with me,
| and how to find out more about me. It encourages me to
| behave well.
|
| This is a community. I consider it to be a professional
| community, and I value the considered input of
| professionals. I learn something every day from HN, and
| have great respect for _many_ of its participants.
|
| It is not a good idea for me to start relationships off
| in a pugilistic manner. I am likely to reduce the number
| of opportunities for me to grow; both personally, and
| professionally.
| double_nan wrote:
| From my point of view there is a hierarchy of swe's at apple.
| On the top are iOS devs - the one who are the closest to the
| users and execs. Next are macos, hardware, backend. After all
| of that you have IST eng (i hope that i remember the name of
| the org correctly) and not really people from Apple's point of
| view: contractors.
| argitest34 wrote:
| The standard way to describe Apple is that there are good and
| bad teams. My experience there (SWE org) was 70+ hour
| workweeks, backstabbing, more politics than anywhere else I've
| ever worked by a factor of ten, useless leadership (director
| had no charisma or leadership skills, but seemed to have the
| Jobs personality...), fear of senior management (director, VPs)
| by managers, and every other negative anecdote about a toxic
| workplace you can come up with.
|
| That being said, I have colleagues in other orgs/teams that
| love their job, work 30 hours a week on average, have strong
| managers, interesting work, and shockingly higher pay.
|
| So, there are good teams and there are bad teams.
| Unfortunately, you only hear that because there are often far
| more bad teams than good.
|
| I've been impressed that Apple has thus far avoided one of
| those "Amazon is the worst company to work for" NYT articles.
| The lows are so unbelievably low at Apple if you end up on a
| bad team.
| exBarrelSpoiler wrote:
| I have also experienced some uniquely Apple lows in my time.
| The mini-Jobs personality problem is spot-on, there are some
| middle managers there who are unprofessionally rude, mean,
| even dictatorial. The stress is ratcheted up by ironclad
| deadlines that entire orgs live and die by. And for a long
| time a lot of internal systems were absurdly out of date even
| though they belonged to such a cutting-edge company.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I've heard (2nd hand) Microsoft also handed out SSAs ("Special
| Stock Awards") last month, but it's unclear how they chose the
| recipients (all across the level range and performance score
| range, though it appeared more targeted at ~3-4 year hires who
| are probably approaching their cliff and considering jumping).
| sfblah wrote:
| Maybe management thinks the stock is overvalued?
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Fuck me, how do I position myself as a developer being poached
| for $200k?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Go to one of a dozen or so privileged colleges that FAANGs
| almost exclusively hire from.
|
| Or more realistically, know someone who is already at one of
| those companies and can vouch for you and get your resume
| looked at by a recruiter. After that it's mostly a matter of
| how well you can handle a high pressure tech interview loop.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Google abandoned the "hire from only the best colleges"
| mantra years ago. It will hire anyone who makes it through
| the interview, regardless of college.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Yes but good luck getting the attention of a recruiter
| without something flashy on your resume, or a Googler's
| recommendation.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| Have you tried just emailing recruiters directly on
| LinkedIn? My resume isn't flashy (no-name college and no-
| name work experience) and certainly it wasn't a few years
| ago. Yet, a few years ago I managed to get interviews
| setup with every single FAANG company, and accepted to
| interview at three of them. I entered through the front
| door with no connections, by simply searching recruiters
| on LinkedIn and "spamming" a couple directly (spam = one
| single message).
| leetcrew wrote:
| it's really not like that. I got interviews from both FAANGs
| I applied to last time. I went to a no name school, worked at
| a no name company, and had no referrals.
|
| the interviews are challenging, but it's no secret what
| you'll be evaluated on.
| digianarchist wrote:
| Google have reached out to me and I didn't attend a
| privileged college by any stretch.
| Terretta wrote:
| Talk to a company that isn't a FAANG and believes in paying
| engineers well because code well written once keeps paying back
| for a long time.
| tlogan wrote:
| My expirence from other large companies is these bonuses will be
| given to wrong engineers. But that is the nature of the beast.
| Nobody yet figured out the fix.
| brentis wrote:
| Would $180k over 4yrs move the needle if making $340k yr salary?
| Think not.
| clintonb wrote:
| In the near term, no. Long term, with appreciation, yes. The
| bonus is paid as equity, not cash. If the share price doubles,
| that bonus is $360K, not $180K. The hope is that you'll be
| incentivized to stick around for the appreciation.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Apple is reaching a size where the un-coordination of its
| leadership and processes as it has grown (while yet rigorously
| enforcing other negative aspects of corporate culture) are
| producing a place that is harder and harder to enjoy working for.
| It worked for a while when the company was small enough and lines
| of command were short enough for leadership to control
| effectively, but it has grown while the people processes have not
| been consciously updated to fit.
|
| Maybe this is just 1% problems. So let me be specific and you
| judge. Promotion within Apple is getting nearly impossible as a
| career path, because company-wide "standards" on how to promote
| someone (above a certain level) invite division-wide scrutiny and
| justification to peers (of the people doing the promoting). Not
| to say that it was a huge career path in the past (you had to be
| lucky), but at least you got paid competitively. Now, can't pay
| someone market rate because that would be going out of band.
| While at the same time, people who come in as "headline" hires
| from external are given not nearly such scrutiny and instead get
| $Ms and hiring bonuses and directorships. AIML, I'm looking at
| you. Strict standards for the masses, bonuses for the leadership.
|
| And Apple is also not good at training/setting up/teaching people
| how to advance while working inside the company. So you are
| practically incentivized to leave and come back for your career
| advancement (once you realize it and want to stop banging your
| head against the wall). But not in any way that was deliberate,
| which loses the company a good deal. Maybe doing that better
| could have saved the company the billions they're having to pay
| now to keep people.
|
| I remember a Steve Jobs quote where he said, "we don't hire smart
| people to tell them what to do, we hire them so they tell _us_
| what to do. " It doesn't feel that way much at all now, because
| seems like Apple just wants labor.
|
| And the annual review system is a joke. It serves just to gather
| feedback from peers and file it away in the drawer, since the
| salary bumps and bonuses are already all determined top-down from
| leadership. So what's the point of giving feedback or striving
| out of your way (unless you have some project that's got major
| visibility on the line)?
|
| I thought that Apple was a welcome exception from the college-
| kids-software-companies, with some more maturity and rigor to it.
| Turns out every company has issues. Eventually you come to accept
| what the company is in your small pocket of it, and take it or
| leave it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Now, can't pay someone market rate because that would be
| going out of band. While at the same time, people who come in
| as "headline" hires from external are given not nearly such
| scrutiny and instead get $Ms and hiring bonuses and
| directorships.
|
| This seems like a common, growing problem in BigTech: It's
| often easier to interview and get L+1 at another company than
| it is to get promoted from L to L+1. Hell, it's probably easier
| to quit and immediately re-interview for L+1 at your own
| company than to go through the arduous promotion grind. When
| you go for promotion, you generally have to have some chain of
| evidence, peer reviews, performance history, etc. to show you
| should be at L+1, whereas when you interview at that L+1 role,
| you merely need to talk your way through a few interviewers and
| bedazzle them sufficiently. I mean, the bar is already high for
| the interviews, don't get me wrong, but believe it or not, it
| appears to be even higher for promotion.
| digianarchist wrote:
| This applies to salary as much as it does to titles and
| roles.
| masterof0 wrote:
| This have been so far my experience. The L5 on my team, was
| L5(L4 at Google scale) at Amazon, couldn't get the promo,
| then interviewed with us , and got L5 with TC at the top of
| the bracket. I know is just one data point, but I have heard
| of similar stories.
| diob wrote:
| So true. I don't understand the logic of why companies do
| this. It's not limited to big tech, I'd say it's true
| anywhere the company grows beyond 40 or so employees.
| tqi wrote:
| I think it comes down to how incentives are structured. In
| my experience, if someone who is promoted from L to L+1
| fails to succeed at that new level, that person's manager
| is dinged for pushing a promotion that the person wasn't
| ready for. Conversely, an external hire who comes in at L+1
| and fails to succeed is chalked up to the difficulties of
| hiring, with no negative consequences for the hiring
| panelists. As a result promotions are much more
| conservative than hiring. Which definitely sucks.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I can't get any sort of loyalty discount from big telcos or
| cable companies either, but they'll gladly give me 3 months
| free service to _switch_ to them. You been a customer with
| us for 8 years and want the $10 /discounted rate we've
| plastered billboards with? Get lost. Or... go switch to a
| competitor, then we'll court you back with freebies.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Or... go switch to a competitor, then we'll court you
| back with freebies.
|
| Obviously going to a competitor comes with its costs, and
| hence people do not do it just for the $x discount. Just
| like with employment.
|
| If there were no switching costs, then you would not see
| these types of "misaligned" incentives.
| gajjanag wrote:
| > Turns out every company has issues. Eventually you come to
| accept what the company is in your small pocket of it, and take
| it or leave it.
|
| +1. I used to think there were some generalizations that could
| be made based on company size, etc, but now I have realized
| that it is pretty similar everywhere (except possibly a < 50
| employee startup).
| csallen wrote:
| _> While at the same time, people who come in as "headline"
| hires from external are given not nearly such scrutiny and
| instead get $Ms and hiring bonuses and directorships... Strict
| standards for the masses, bonuses for the leadership._
|
| The is the natural consequence of commoditization. If you are
| rank-and-file engineer #8430, you're a commodity. You've molded
| your skillset into a specific shape that fits into a particular
| hole, and as a result you get options. You get security.
| Because there are _lots_ of engineer-shaped holes at _lots_ of
| companies. Unfortunately, there are _lots_ of engineer-shaped
| people. You can be easily replaced by someone with a similar
| skillset. So why pay you more and more, when if you quit, it 's
| no big deal? Supply and demand at work.
|
| These "headline" hires are different. They have rarer skillsets
| that are harder to come by. They're harder to hire, harder to
| replace, and often require poaching. Demand for them is high,
| because supply is low. Of course they're going to get paid
| more, and of course those deals are going to involve more
| flexibility and negotiation. For the same reason you see lots
| of negotiation during the purchases of cars/houses/etc, but not
| buying paperclips/cereal/other commodities at the store.
|
| This is just markets at work. I think the mistake is assuming
| that just because you exist in the same company as someone
| else, your role in the market is (or should be) identical.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Some of what you say is true. But lately, it feels like one
| of the skills of management hires is simply being able to
| talk like you know how to do the job.
|
| And when they then get in the company, turns out they have no
| better idea / skills to change what we do than anyone
| internally. But they just got paid 3x to join and find that
| out.
|
| But hey, maybe that's the game. And maybe the dumber
| companies are getting hoodwinked. Join the game I guess and
| make out like a bandit while the getting is good then.
| csallen wrote:
| I see stories regularly of engineers who know very little,
| yet get hired and paid huge sums to fuck around for years
| and coast while staying under the radar. It happens at
| every level. It's turtles all the way down.
| [deleted]
| shrimpx wrote:
| > It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass
| off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another
| dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I
| have eight different bosses right now.
|
| -- Peter Gibbons, Office Space
| cardosof wrote:
| > Strict standards for the masses, bonuses for the leadership.
|
| Maybe I'm old and bitter but... Isn't any corporation like
| this? Those who hold the power will use it for their own good,
| or at the very least, to avoid personal problems and
| responsibilities. Quick example: you fight to promote someone
| and it turns out the person shouldn't have been promoted? You
| screwed up big time, you traded a good employee who was
| performing well in his spot for a bad employee and now have one
| person to fire and two open roles to fill. You hire someone
| from outside? Well if that person fails you can't be fully
| blamed because of course the HR and your boss were involved so
| if everyone was wrong then no one can't be blamed.
| slimsag wrote:
| Serious question: what are the companies where this is not
| true?
|
| My experience personally and from what I have heard from
| others, this is basically true at every tech workplace today
| jedberg wrote:
| Netflix.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| It sounds exactly like any company I have worked for. From
| small to big.
| Exmoor wrote:
| If the GP poster had said that that Apple had previously
| solved the "external hires treated better than internal
| candidates" it would be perhaps the _most impressive_ thing I
| 'd ever heard about Apple culture.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The mythical Apple of yesteryear.
| supernova87a wrote:
| That is true. But it seems like the gap between IC levels and
| managers is growing much larger than before, while the skills
| (at least those displayed) by managers is hardly as
| noticeable.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Interesting, Apple pays $180k over 4 years to prevent good
| engineers from going to Meta.
|
| Meanwhile, Meta gives >$1M in discretionary equity to top
| performers to prevent them from leaving. I don't think Apple
| picked a big enough number here.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Apple pays $180k over 4 years to prevent good engineers from
| going to Meta
|
| Much better wording than what the article says, which is
| "likely meant to keep companies like Facebook parent company
| Meta from poaching employees".
|
| Poaching, as far as I know, is illegal trafficking of animals.
| Why are media companies insisting we see the human workforce as
| animals, and that we should view companies offering better
| pay/work as "stealing" employees when in reality, it's just
| people switching jobs, something that is normal?
| lolsal wrote:
| Meta has a moral/ethical cost as well as a branding tax.
| treyfitty wrote:
| I'm willing to bet the general populace will find ways to
| justify working for Meta. The compensation is a lot to say no
| to
| stathibus wrote:
| I don't have an insider perspective on this, but from where
| I'm sitting, it sure looks like the giant bag of money is
| sufficient and Meta/Facebook hasn't had to worry about any of
| those things for a long time.
| greiskul wrote:
| The giant bag of money is the tax. If they weren't having
| problems with retention and hiring because of the ethical
| dilemma, they wouldn't have to offer such a large retention
| bonus.
| hugi wrote:
| sugarpile wrote:
| "The giant bag of money" has been a thing for a long time
| -- it predates whatever branding issues people perceive
| them having lately.
| fermentation wrote:
| I think context matters a lot with these recent articles
| about eng salaries. Hiring any mid-level and up engineer
| is tough right now, and Amazon recently bumped their
| salary bands by quite a bit. I think other companies are
| now catching up.
| gjs278 wrote:
| swarnie wrote:
| mgraczyk wrote:
| This is a mean spirited comment that doesn't belong on HN.
| Not going to argue but I don't feel that comments like these
| add anything of value to the discussion.
| swarnie wrote:
| sofixa wrote:
| I disagree. Meta is a big tech company which is up there
| with Rio Tinto in "purely evil how the heck do they still
| exist" land. Tech people should be able to discuss how
| terrible they are. And one of the only possible ways to
| influence them from the outside is to shame those selling
| their morals for money.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| That doesn't seem too hyperbolic to me, though to be fair
| to Rio Tinto they don't just poison rivers and blow up
| cultural heritage, they actually produce needed materials
| in the process. I'd say working for adtech is closer to a
| job with a defense contractor making landmines, maybe not
| quite so gruesome, sure, but so negative that the
| positives are awfully hard to see...
| hamburglar wrote:
| I think an interesting thing here is that even if we all
| can agree that Meta is bad in the extreme, it's still
| fairly easy to hook engineers who want to solve non-evil
| problems on a massive, massive scale. They can tell
| themselves they're not working on a specific feature or
| service that participates in the evil, they're just using
| their talents to ... make an absolutely massive chat
| system, or incredible optimizations to network topology,
| or SSL termination at a mind-boggling scale. These aren't
| directly evil projects, and there are very, very few
| places where you get the opportunity to work on them at
| facebook scale.
|
| I think this is how people justify it to themselves. It's
| probably how I'd justify it to myself if I went there. I
| personally don't ever plan to work there and the bigger
| and more evil they get, the weaker that justification
| becomes, but hey, it's a real thing.
| objclxt wrote:
| > Meta gives >$1M in discretionary equity to top performers to
| prevent them from leaving
|
| Most of the engineers receiving these bonuses would never get
| discretionary equity at Meta. Discretionary equity is given to
| < 1% of engineering every year. Of course, Meta also has very
| generous regular RSU and bonus schemes.
| np_tedious wrote:
| Yep. $180k would be a pretty small Additional/Discretionary
| equity grant at Meta
| giantg2 wrote:
| Meanwhile, I'm over here with an effective 4.7% pay cut as my
| "merit" increase.
| bezospen15 wrote:
| What skillet is needed for these jobs that in so much demand?
| I've been working with infrastructure/VMware for 10 years and
| just a year in Azure. Looking for a quick way to catch up and
| ride this gravy train.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| In 1979 an inflation-led recession rocked the US economy, abated
| for about 3 quarters, then returned for another 4 quarters
| starting in 1981. I expect the same to happen in the months
| ahead, and in that context Apple's offer is attractive. For
| anyone who hasn't lived through a deep recession, or an
| inflation-led recession (stagflation)... it really sucked.
| xxpor wrote:
| Those recessions weren't inflation led, they were intentionally
| caused by the fed to break inflation.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| > "Most engineers received stock worth $80,000 to $120,000, with
| the bonuses provided as restricted stock units that are set to
| vest over the course of four years provided the employees stay
| with Apple and do not take jobs at other companies."
|
| Is that really a significant amount enough to ward off being
| poached? 120k over 4 years is 30k a year if linear. I would think
| at the pay scales being discussed they would get 30k a year just
| to move companies.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| 30k works better than you would think even though its "not that
| much" for these workers because of the loss aversion bias.
| ja3k wrote:
| Not even loss aversion replicates well.
| brentis wrote:
| Just said same thing. Making $360k yr. and wouldn't even feel
| it.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Also - is this even new?
|
| >50% of engineers at Google are L4+. For the last few years, at
| L4 you should have been getting annual ~$100k grants over 4
| years if your work in The Bay.
|
| My understanding is that FB paid even more, and that Amazon was
| maybe 20% behind at the same level.
|
| It's not like pre-covid engineers got nothing and now you get a
| $120k Bonus suddenly.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Are these on top of a cash bonus?
| mghfreud wrote:
| Yes, but cash bonuses are "only" around 15-25% of base pay
| depending on seniority. For senior engineers, rsu grants
| are >= base pay.
| [deleted]
| Turbots wrote:
| ineedasername wrote:
| Sure, it's not going to discourage someone that is very
| actively looking elsewhere already. But for people on the
| fence? And the people that would follow _them_ if they made the
| jump? That 's who this is aimed at. And who knows? For the
| folks already looking to get out, if the first one or two
| opportunities to come their way don't work out, maybe they'll
| decide to stay too.
|
| This is especially true for anyone looking to jump ship mostly
| for the money: If someone wants to jump ship for an extra
| 40k-50k, then giving them 30k makes the difference pretty
| negligible, all else being equal.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Not sure if this is how it works, but if they're awarded now
| and Apple maintains its current growth it could be worth 4x
| (AAPL is up ~400% compared to 4 years ago).
| ripper1138 wrote:
| Extremely unlikely that Apple will 4x again in 4 years. Last
| 4 years stock performance are an extreme outlier for the all
| big tech companies.
| jonas21 wrote:
| It's not really _that_ much of an outlier -- AAPL has had
| pretty ridiculous growth in each of the previous 4-year
| periods this century as well. 2021-12-28
| $179.29 4.19x 2017-12-28 $ 42.77 2.14x
| 2013-12-28 $ 20.00 2.65x 2009-12-28 $ 7.56
| 2.87x 2005-12-28 $ 2.63 6.57x
| 2001-12-28 $ 0.40 3.33x 1997-12-28 $ 0.12
|
| I agree this can't go on for too much longer, if only
| because governments will eventually stop Apple if they
| control too much of the economy. But is there room for
| another 4x? Maybe?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Apple being a $12 trillion company in four years just
| seems pretty low probability to me.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Would you have you ascribed a low probability to Apple
| being $3T as of Dec 2021 back in Sep 2019 (when it hit
| $1T)?
| Turbots wrote:
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| What you aren't taking into account is that the larger
| you are, the more difficult it is to grow. You can even
| see this in Apple's growth since 2005 slowly declining.
|
| The last couple of years have been absolutely bonkers.
| 4x-ing from here would be 17x their valuation in 2017.
| Controlling for inflation, the probability of that
| happening given their current valuation seems
| ridiculously low.
| anm89 wrote:
| Lol, yeah they would be worth 12T at that point. Either the
| dollar implodes and Apple becomes a sovereign nation or 4x
| aint happening.
| rsstack wrote:
| They don't need to convince _you_ that there 's a chance
| for 4x growth, they need to convince those specific
| individuals that there's a chance. And those engineers are
| immersed in a culture that could affect their perception of
| Apple's potential.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Apple is targeting its next 10 years' growth in three key
| markets: Laptops, VR/AR, and EVs. How big is each market
| cap?
| sofixa wrote:
| VR/AR is miniscule with relatively high potential. We'll
| have to wait and see what they come up with, it could be
| great, it could be niche, no way no to know.
|
| EV has huge potential, but has a lot of competition, and
| Apple would be late to the party and without any serious
| advantages, technological, ecosystem, or otherwise. On
| the contrary, they'd have to build delivery and repair
| networks from scratch ( assuming they delegate all
| manufacturing). Even for their endless financial
| reserves, it seems very improbable they'd get anywhere
| serious within 10 years in the EV market.
|
| Laptops - that's a tough market with lots of competition
| and long retention ( as in people rarely upgrade, and
| tend to stick to manufacturers), many of it Apple simply
| cannot and could not overcome ( Windows will probably
| remain the de facto enterprise standard for some more
| time). They finally have a serious technological
| advantage beyond more abstract, subjective or niche ones
| ( better UX or light or long batter life) advantages.
| chrischen wrote:
| Also apple forays into new niches are generally hit or
| miss, though they do at least keep at it until it works
| like Apple Watch and Apple TV (which was near useless for
| the first 3-4 years).
| jorvi wrote:
| Laptops?
|
| I remember seeing a slide a while back (2017ish) where
| 70% of Apple's revenue was from iPhones, 5% from iPads
| and 2% from Macs. No way in hell do they consider that a
| big growth market.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Apple Silicon
| jorvi wrote:
| Laptops didn't shrink to such a tiny part of Apple's
| revenue because of poor performance, Apple is at its core
| a consumer electronics company, and the paradigm for what
| devices consumers mainly use shifted with the times.
| flatiron wrote:
| They grant your "restricted stock units" and deal them out
| per quarter. So it could be worth $5 or 5 million when they
| get them.
| greiskul wrote:
| Well, the engineer could also take a job at another company,
| and just used the increased compensation to buy more Apple
| stock. Unless they significantly believe that they working in
| Apple will be a significant factor in Apple stock price
| increasing 4x, in which case, they should probably ask for
| more stock.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| Except that RSUs that will mature 4 years from now will be
| granted today, so you have 4 years of potential
| appreciation even if you don't have the money to buy those
| securities today. It's quite difficult to replicate the
| same strategy without taking significantly more risk (i.e.
| margin), and it's a big driver in why tech comps have been
| huge on average, because by the time shares vest they have
| already ballooned.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| I work for an public enterprise software company and it's a
| constant drip of RSUs as performance bonuses, retention,
| company milestones, anniversary dates, "well we can't give you
| raise right now but how about some RSUs?", etc.
|
| So after a couple years as the vesting dates hit these start to
| stack and they end up becoming quite significant.
| halpert wrote:
| Yea, and that's 30k before tax. The marginal rate is quite high
| for senior engineers. Most likely around 15k after tax
| loeg wrote:
| That's going to be true of all marginal compensation
| differences.
| spiderice wrote:
| Is that relevant? Wouldn't an extra $30k at a new company
| also get taxed the same amount?
| halpert wrote:
| The GP was highlighting that 30k per year is very little to
| keep senior talent. I was adding some perspective to how
| little it really is after considering taxes at the highest
| bracket.
| test0account wrote:
| It matters if not everything is about money.
|
| Is 15k extra per year an effective boost to happiness?
|
| Is 15k enough to keep working for Big Brother, in a job
| with very limited freedom, professionally and socially
|
| Is 15k enough to keep working in a company that keeps users
| addicted to unhealthy behaviors?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| A bonus is a bonus. Presumably this is on top of whatever they
| had before, so an extra $20K to $45K per year is icing on the
| cake.
|
| In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from company
| to company every year trying to squeeze every last dollar out
| of their compensation. The strategy works well for a few
| iterations in early careers, but eventually it starts becoming
| counter-productive.
|
| If you have 10 jobs in 10 years on your resume, every hiring
| manager who sees it will instantly recognize that you're a job
| hopper who isn't likely to stay longer than a year. It also
| becomes difficult to really accomplish anything big if you're
| always leaving a company before you can really hit your stride.
|
| Most people I know who end up at FAANG level companies are
| interested in sticking around for at least 3-4 years, if not
| longer. This provides the chance to accomplish bigger things,
| build an actual reputation within the company, and move up the
| in-company career ladder. Jumping to other companies for a
| $10-50K immediate bonus could be shooting yourself in the foot
| relative to sticking around long enough to get a promotion and
| retention awards.
| shrimpx wrote:
| My perception is that everyone knows job hopping is normal
| and companies will be happy to have you for that 1-2 years if
| you're good. It's not a black mark on your resume. For me a
| questionable resume is someone who spent the past 20 years at
| Accenture or something. Signals possibility of being too
| entrenched in those habits to make a contribution in a new
| environment.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > My perception is that everyone knows job hopping is
| normal and companies will be happy to have you for that 1-2
| years if you're good. It's not a black mark on your resume.
|
| A few short engagements are no big deal, but serial job
| hoppers are a warning flag for deeper investigation.
|
| I won't overlook a resume for having a job hopper
| signature, but we will be going very deep into _their_
| accomplishments at these companies. It 's often hard to
| ramp up at a company and deliver something significant from
| start to finish and production follow-up in 12 months.
|
| Most of the job hoppers I interview end up citing projects
| that they contributed to, but can't really pin down much
| significant that was really their own contribution. It's
| not impossible, but it's far more common to find
| significant contributions in 2-4 year engineers.
| Shebanator wrote:
| As an engineering manager, this is definitely not true for
| me. If you have a long history of short tenures, you aren't
| worth the time to bring up to speed (which is generally 4-6
| months). Having a short stint or two isn't a big deal
| though, people work for companies that have financial
| problems, or they get a bad manager, or whatever.
| 19h wrote:
| I agree. If an applicant doesn't seem to be invested into
| any previous company enough to stay more than a year
| they're going to be sorted out very early on.
|
| On top of that, most of our most productive engineers
| stayed over 4 years.
|
| Unless you're a senior or lead, it's unlikely that you
| have had the opportunity to gain enough deep exposure to
| many technologies and problems in a very short tenure at
| a company.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Seniors and leads aren't going to get a lot of depth in a
| short period time, either. Seniors and leads do a lot of
| non-deep work that, depending on their responsibilities,
| may involve "lead" activities that take away from deep-
| diving uninterrupted.
|
| Also I don't think seniors and leads with short stints
| are to be trusted (from recent experience with such
| people).
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Also a hiring manager and I agree: The job-hopping
| mentality is greatly exaggerated online.
|
| I go through a lot of resumes, but hardcore job hopper
| resumes are still very rare. Numerically, they'd have to
| be overrepresented in the applicant pool due to changing
| jobs 2-5X more frequently than everyone else.
|
| It's not a big deal if someone has a couple short jobs on
| their resume or even a series of short-term engagements.
| But what may not be obvious until you've done a lot of
| hiring is that it's really hard to tell the difference
| between someone who changes jobs every 12 months for a
| pay increase compared to someone who changes jobs every
| 12 months because they get PIPed and managed out of every
| company they work for. Some people are _really_ good at
| interviewing, but will show up at your company and
| proceed to ride your performance management track until
| they 're pushed out, at which case they hop into the next
| company and move on.
|
| So at minimum, job hoppers get much more intensive
| interviews and reference checks. But more realistically I
| just give priority to candidates who have track records
| of accomplishing bigger things over longer periods of
| time at companies.
| codegeek wrote:
| If you a serial job hopper (stayed less than 2 years at
| more than 60% of your portfolio employers), that is a red
| flag for me as a hiring manager. Yes if you are stuck at
| Accenture for 20 years doing the same shit, that is also
| bad but you can't just hop jobs every year or so and call
| it normal. Teams want candidates to stick around especially
| if they are any good and if I don't see that on your Resume
| at least for some companies in your past, I would pass
| specially for senior roles.
| mancerayder wrote:
| It depends on how big the things you're building are. If
| you have an influence in direction-setting, policy,
| procedures, norms, even company culture, if you're involved
| in large projects that take time, then 1-2 years might not
| be enough. Certainly not 1 year. If you're in a large
| organization, it takes many months to just build the
| relationships enough to accomplish bigger things.
|
| Jumping around every 1-2 years is fine if you're junior or
| mid. After that you're suspect. We had a guy who left after
| 1.5 years. It was sudden and disruptive, and the guy burned
| bridges. We were not surprised since his past jobs were
| like that (short stints, and anger by the end of the last
| one). However, now, everyone we interview who's senior, we
| look at a different light with regards to job hopping.
|
| Lesson learned with regards to that. Beware of senior
| engineers who job hop.
| sf_sugar_daddy wrote:
| a4isms wrote:
| I interview 50% or more of the senior engineers we (A YC-
| backed company that is post-IPO and still growing rapidly)
| hire. I assure you that our interview process for engineers
| at this level is weighted towards significant involvement
| in projects.
|
| We consider it unacceptable if all the projects a candidate
| wants to talk about "began before I was hired, and shipped
| after I left." And that's what you get if you are an
| aggressive job-hopper your entire career, not just at the
| beginning.
|
| I am never against someone wanting to negotiate the
| compensation they deserve for the skills they have
| developed. And certainly, for many skills, job hopping is
| the strategy for maximizing your pay for the skills you are
| able to learn and refine in 1-2 years per job.
|
| But if you don't develop the skill of taking a major multi-
| year project from inception to completion, there is a skill
| you don't have that we will not pay for by hiring you at
| the top two levels of our org.
| a4isms wrote:
| p.s. There's more than just shepherding long projects,
| that's just the easiest thing to explain. But to add some
| colour, other things a senior engineer is expected to
| demonstrate are:
|
| 1. Experience with the consequences of their choices. Ok,
| you were able to get a job at company X, get up to speed,
| and lead a major cross-team or cross-group initiative
| within two years. What happened after that? Did it create
| the desired outcomes? Why? Why not? Were there
| unanticipated consequences? What part did you play in
| dealing with those?
|
| 2. Experience with change. Managers--even entire
| management orgs--change. Were you around long enough to
| live through one such change? Or did you jump ship
| without acquiring any experience or scars from the
| change? Strategies change, e.g. Pivoting from B2C to B2B,
| or weaning a company off a dependence on sales-led
| growth. Do you have experience with not just the
| technological consequences, but the organizational
| consequences? Do you have the skill of creating an oasis
| of calm within the chaos?
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| > major multi-year project
|
| I'm not sure what company you're at but there is
| certainly not a multi-year project in any I've worked at.
| There are long term _product_ roadmaps but in order to
| stay agile you never commit to something as big as a
| multi-year project. There are only individual features
| that get committed to. Even in core infra (heavily
| technical) where needs and solutions are known committed
| work goes out a year tops.
|
| Absolutely you want people who delivered things from
| start to finish but I've never heard of those things
| taking multiple years. If it takes 2-3 years for your
| product to go to market it's a failure, regardless of
| whether it's an external or internal product.
| fredophile wrote:
| This probably depends a lot on your industry. In my
| industry, every product I've worked on took multiple
| years to ship. It wouldn't be unreasonable to want to
| find sr engineers who had been through the whole cycle
| from early planning to post launch support.
|
| Out of curiosity, what product does your company make?
| What kind of moat do they have if anything you do can be
| replicated in under a year by a competitor?
| masterof0 wrote:
| > If you have 10 jobs in 10 years on your resume, every
| hiring manager who sees it will instantly recognize that
| you're a job hopper who isn't likely to stay longer than a
| year.
|
| HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they dont
| care, they are paid to bring talent in, they don't get
| penalized if an employee quits after a year.
|
| > This provides the chance to accomplish bigger things, build
| ....
|
| I have seen your other comments along the same line, is
| mostly wrong, at least here in the US, is always business ,
| you have an obligation to yourself(or your family, etc...)
| not to your employer, most smart people hiring understand
| that you switch jobs seeking a higher TC, in the same way
| businesses change course/pivot seeking higher profits. The
| "stay forever and maybe one day you will get promoted", is a
| thing of the past. You make more money switching jobs than
| waiting for a promotion, lots of companies don't have enough
| "senior positions" or all the next level positions are
| covered, so you would have to wait until your manager (or
| next level pos) retires or leave. Also, managers see people
| who are afraid to leave, or "loyal" to the company as people
| then can squeeze more work out of.
|
| > It also becomes difficult to really accomplish anything big
| if you're always leaving a company before you can really hit
| your stride.
|
| "Anything big" like what?
| deanCommie wrote:
| > HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they
| don't care, they are paid to bring talent in,
|
| You're confusing recruiters for line managers. HM == Hiring
| Manager == the person who's trying to build a team to
| accomplish a project, and at large companies most likely a
| multi-year roadmap.
|
| They absolutely care about people staying a long time - it
| is expensive to train people on the internals of each
| company. At a FAANG++ company, you get your first code
| checked in in your first week, but it takes a YEAR to be
| truly productive where you are fully autonomous, and have
| paid off the initial ramp-up period.
|
| > I have seen your other comments along the same line, is
| mostly wrong, at least here in the US, is always business
|
| According to you. Not everyone's focus is 100% financial-
| based. Do I want to maximize my earning potential? Of
| course. But work is also 1/3 of my life. Another 1/3 is
| sleep. They money is for the last 3rd. So is my entire
| focus on 1/3 of my life to make the other waking 3rd to be
| as lucrative as possible? I think that's one way to
| approach it, but I think that's extremely short-sighted and
| unfulfilling.
|
| I want my work to be meaningful, challenging, interesting,
| and impactful. At this point in my career I can control all
| this by finding workplaces, coworkers, and projects that
| match my skillset and my impact, and I can realize this.
| This means committing to multi-year plans to achieve
| something significant. (In the olden days we would have
| called this a "legacy", and I suppose that's still
| appropriate to some degree, though I don't expect to get a
| plaque on a bridge for it).
|
| I think a lot of people are in the same boat as me. It's
| also part of the hacker and startup ethos - to make an
| actual dent in the universe.
|
| Your attitude is very cynical, and while I agree with you
| that you don't owe anything to the capitalist system that
| is cynical about using you, that doesn't mean seeking money
| is the only way.
|
| > lots of companies don't have enough "senior positions" or
| all the next level positions are covered
|
| Absolutely not true. All the FAANG++ companies do
| promotions based on accomplishments and achievements, not a
| quota of budget or availability of folks at the next level.
|
| > Also, managers see people who are afraid to leave, or
| "loyal" to the company as people then can squeeze more work
| out of.
|
| Not the case. These managers exist, but they're not the
| majority. Most people who go into management genuinely care
| about people, and are interested in developing them. They'd
| like to reward loyalty. Unfortunately the aforementioned
| capitalist system does not permit this, but on an
| individual level managers are human beings with usually
| more empathy than IC's (out of necessity).
|
| > "Anything big" like what?
|
| A major software project that takes a team of people
| several years to accomplish.
| alphakappa wrote:
| > HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they
| dont care, they are paid to bring talent in, they don't get
| penalized if an employee quits after a year.
|
| Recruiters might be paid to bring people in, but HMs are
| the ones whose teams these hires typically work for, so
| being able to do productive things with them is more
| important than just bringing people in. The cost of
| retraining, losing institutional knowledge etc, and just
| the time it takes to bring in a new person are all costs
| that take away from the actual work of building the
| product.
| topkai22 wrote:
| I'm currently involved in hiring at a rather large tech
| company and I assure you that the hiring manager would be
| highly displeased if someone left after just a year. In
| fact, that is true of every hiring manager I've ever worked
| with, because hiring managers hire direct to thier teams
| and turnover is a PITA. Recruiters may not care, but
| managers and teammates do. That's not to say we'd resent
| someone taking a better offer, but managers and ICs alike
| prefer lower turnover.
|
| In also know that there is a point (basically
| staff/principal) where we are very reluctant to make
| outside hires who haven't been at that level at another big
| tech company for a while. We'll almost never up level
| someone at hire time. You have to have demonstrated impact
| over time and that is hard to do without 2.5+ years at the
| company (although I'm getting the sense that once you break
| that threshold, moving around more frequently can help
| again.)
| hamburglar wrote:
| > most smart people hiring understand that you switch jobs
| seeking a higher TC, in the same way businesses change
| course/pivot seeking higher profits
|
| > The "stay forever and maybe one day you will get
| promoted", is a thing of the past. You make more money
| switching jobs than waiting for a promotion
|
| These statements are FAR from universally true. My TC has
| more than doubled in the last 5 years without a job hop. In
| the same time period, many of my peers have hopped to
| facebook et al and increased their TC comparably. There is
| no one true way.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they
| dont care, they are paid to bring talent in, they don't get
| penalized if an employee quits after a year.
|
| Hiring managers care because it's a big hit to your
| deliverables every time someone leaves and you have hire
| someone else, bring them up to speed, and try to get them
| back up to the same level of knowledge as the person who
| left.
|
| If you have a team of 6 and everyone leaves every 12
| months, that means you're hiring and re-training a new
| person every other month. And every other month, 17% of
| your team's accumulated knowledge/experience walks out the
| door. And every year, you're basically starting over with a
| new team.
|
| It sucks, and that's why hiring managers give preference to
| people who aren't serial job hoppers.
|
| It's actually becoming fairly common for companies to give
| back-weighted compensation or hiring bonuses that must be
| paid back if the employee leaves before two years,
| especially for job hoppers.
| masterof0 wrote:
| People leaving companies every 1-2 years, doesn't mean,
| that on any given team, everybody will leave every year,
| so your example is a bit over the top.
|
| > It's actually becoming fairly common for companies to
| give back-weighted compensation or hiring bonuses that
| must be paid back if the employee leaves before two
| years, especially for job hoppers.
|
| Which companies are doing this?
|
| The way companies keep employees around is with good RSU
| vesting schedules, and end of the year bonuses, etc... I
| understand that a team with people leaving all the time,
| is bad for business , that's why companies (that care)
| have incentives in place to avoid that. But judging a
| person for wanting a better pay/treatment/wlb is
| ridiculous, I can see your point from the business owner
| perspective.
| symlinkk wrote:
| It is significantly harder to get promoted than to change
| jobs, and the former almost always pays less than the latter.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Most people I know who end up at FAANG level companies are
| interested in sticking around for at least 3-4 years
|
| Which, unsurprisingly, also happens to (usually) be the
| vesting period for their stocks/options they agreed to
| receive when starting there.
| brandall10 wrote:
| Maybe not most, but I'd gather those in the FAANG/unicorn
| game do - the upside is far too great to not do it. Not 1
| year... but more like 1.5-2 years is probably most likely.
|
| And we're not talking a measly $30k bump, but more like
| $100k. It's far more advantageous to move on than to work
| toward an internal promotion.
|
| As someone in charge of hiring at my current company, having
| brought on 17 devs over the past year, the ones we really
| worry about have a bunch of 6-9 month engagements. But every
| 1.5 years or so, with some lesser here or there... no problem
| at all. More likely than not they're great at what they do.
| echelon wrote:
| > In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from
| company to company every year trying to squeeze every last
| dollar out of their compensation.
|
| Not in my experience. Most engineers spend 1-2 years, then
| leave.
|
| > move up the in-company career ladder.
|
| That's a hard ladder to climb from the inside. Politics lead
| to entrenchment.
|
| > accomplish anything big
|
| A great deal of work is plumbing and KTLO. What do the folks
| working on these things get? They're not great promo or
| resume fodder for internal mobility.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Keep in mind that it's $30k the first year. If you get the same
| bonus the next year, it's now $60k ($30k from the first grant +
| $30k from the second). At 4 years you're now making $120k per
| year above your salary. On top of that, Apple stock has been
| doing pretty well for something like 15-20 years now. If you
| don't immediately sell, that first $30k you got is now worth
| significantly more, though there are no guarantees that will
| continue into the future. But it certainly can work out very
| nicely. If you start over at a new company, you lose that extra
| $120k per year for the next 4 years until you're vested at the
| new company.
| Shebanator wrote:
| This is apparently a new and unprecedented bonus from Apple,
| over and above "normal" stock compensation. I'd be surprised
| if they repeat this every year.
| conductr wrote:
| Proactive vs reactive bonus logic.
|
| If you're proactive, people are generally happy and not really
| a huge flight risk so the bonus just keeps them from even
| entertaining external offers even though they're hearing rumors
| of people leaving for X% more.
|
| If you're reactive, well they're probably already gone and you
| need to give them a huge counter offer to stay, many folks
| believe in the "never accept a counter" rule so again, you lost
| your employee.
| sbarre wrote:
| This is nothing new. I've heard that some well-known tech
| companies are offering fairly large additional stock-based long-
| term incentives (up to 2-3x salary in some cases) to key senior
| engineering talent to keep teams together for the next few years.
|
| LTIs are a pretty standard retention practice in general,
| especially for key employees who are already at the top of their
| pay bands, but the churn in the industry over the last 18 months
| has probably driven up the actual value of them across the board,
| and potentially even shortened the vesting period.
| frozenport wrote:
| We've been interviewing a bunch of Apple engineers.
|
| I doubt the $30k a year with some difficult vesting cliff is
| going to keep those guys working at the dumpster fire that has
| become Apple.
| m_a_g wrote:
| In what ways did it become a dumpster fire? I thought Apple was
| a great place to work, but now I'm curious...
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| Things change. Their products used to be so good they were
| considered as a standard for quality and usability. Few of
| the iconic companies of the past retain their status. Apple
| has sunk a long way; but, like IBM and Microsoft, though,
| there's a still a lot of air to fall through before they hit
| ground.
| ju-st wrote:
| Apple products are mostly still 10x better than their
| competitors products.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| LOL - dumpster fire of money! and prestige and long-term sales
| channels. Apple for engineers you mean.. most people here care,
| but management does not care, and brags about that. I
| absolutely recall Apple's cynical "revenue per employee"
| numbers being pushed around, like a house cat who craps in the
| middle of a path, to show everyone who is really in charge.
| the_duke wrote:
| Can you share the complaints? What's theur reason for leaving?
| choppaface wrote:
| these offers seem to be _down_ from 10 years ago when the
| retainers were 10x as large?
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/google-offers-staff-engine...
|
| That was Facebook-Google though. Apple likes to do no-poaches...
| https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Back in 2008 or so I remember rumors of Google giving million
| dollar stock awards to keep engineers from leaving, particularly
| female or other under-represented classes. These Apple award
| numbers sound downright stingy for a trillion dollar tech
| company.
| stathibus wrote:
| On one hand it seems like it would have happened already, but I
| still have to wonder if the FAANG arms race will have
| consequences in 5-10 years when all these overpaid engineers call
| in rich and decide to go work on something more interesting and
| with less bureaucracy in the way.
| jstx1 wrote:
| How do you imagine it playing out? It's unlikely to happen at
| huge scale since most people won't happily take a huge paycut
| regardless of how well-off they are. And there's enough people
| who want to work at those companies to replace the ones that
| leave.
| stathibus wrote:
| > most people won't happily take a huge paycut regardless of
| how well-off they are.
|
| I would, but I guess I could be in the minority there.
| clintonb wrote:
| It depends on individual priorities. Some folks just enjoy
| stacking cash. If you can do that, and maintain the status
| of being a top engineer at a well-known company, why rock
| the boat?
|
| Additionally, it's really hard to step away from solving
| large scaling issues, and go back to trying to finding your
| first customers/building an MVP.
|
| I've been at startups and large companies. I like the money
| and challenges at large companies, and I don't have crazy
| hours.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Speaking of employee stock options,
|
| Does anyone have a recommended resource that details what
| practically happens to my options when a company IPOs?
|
| I know there's a lot of variables but I imagine there's some
| common patterns and things to be aware of.
|
| The entire thing is Greek to me and might become very important
| soon.
| nws wrote:
| This document was very helpful to me https://docdro.id/ZtXxCNd
| toast0 wrote:
| I'm sure there's variables, but your company will most likely
| setup something with a brokerage and then you'll have to create
| an account there and have an employer equity account which will
| track your options. When you exercise them, the shares will go
| into your regular brokerage account and you can trade them like
| anything else (potentially subject to trading windows and other
| temporal conditions). Once you've got shares, you can transfer
| them out to a different brokerage if you like paperwork.
|
| Hopefully at a decent brokerage like e-trade or fidelity or
| schwab or even whatever Merril Lynch is called these days, and
| not ComputerShare, which is terrible.
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Thanks. I was under the impression that until my options
| became stocks, my interface would be some person in the
| finance department. If my options appear in some managed
| brokerage account of mine, that makes this a lot more
| transparent.
| toast0 wrote:
| Eventually, it should be in a managed account. But it may
| take a while post IPO to set it up. It depends how much
| experience the finance department has, but the brokerages
| know how to do it.
| livinglist wrote:
| I know a team at apple where four senior engineers quited in past
| two months... it's just crazy
| carlycue wrote:
| Apple is the biggest brand in the world and consumers love the
| company more than any other brand. Meta/Facebook is a peanut when
| it comes to the consumer hardware space. AR/VR will probably
| replace the smartphone in 10 years but I don't think Apple has
| anything to worry about. Apple will cannibalize the iPhone
| themselves.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _AR /VR will probably replace the smartphone in 10 years_
|
| What? How? Why? Those devices have completely different uses...
| SirHound wrote:
| AR is a superset of the smartphone
| MarcellusDrum wrote:
| I'd argue that since most of the younger generation uses
| their phones for social media, AR/VR has real potential in
| replacing traditional social networks in the next decade. The
| only thing I can think of that wouldn't fit well in AR/VR is
| reading articles.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Outside the industry this is significant. Inside the industry
| this is nothing.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well, I'd love to work for Apple, but I have no interest into
| moving from Minnesota suburbs to the Bay Area with all of its
| sanitation and ludicrous cost of living problems.
|
| If I was Apple... it was the wrong time to build fancy
| headquarters. You got a few years, and now the area around it is
| falling apart and your employees have fallen in love with remote
| work.
| nawgz wrote:
| > now the area around it is falling apart
|
| Lol. As a current Cupertino resident and non-Apple employee,
| this is the nicest place I've ever lived. Massive perfect
| roads, extremely low crime or homelessness, modern buildings,
| and easy access to freeways. It's not at all like downtown SF
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| If two of your four points concern roads, especially how
| "massive" they are, then I think many people would disagree
| with your definition of nice.
| nawgz wrote:
| I mean, I could pump up the restaurants and apartment
| buildings more if you like; I am unsure how modern well
| maintained infrastructure and mobility are not important
| factors in niceness though.
| xrikcus wrote:
| Coming from Menlo Park even, Cupertino feels a bit too dull
| and suburban, but it is astonishingly well maintained in
| comparison to anywhere else in the bay area. No doubt that
| the city is doing a great job.
| jedberg wrote:
| I've lived here for 12 years and I can tell you that you
| are totally right -- it's very dull and suburban and also
| well maintained. It's practically a company town. The Mayor
| couldn't even name the second biggest employer in town
| after Apple. I think it's actually Amazon.
| astrange wrote:
| Of course, the people who live in Cupertino all hate
| Apple because they're retirees and hate the traffic,
| think male tech employees will molest their children and
| hire prostitutes[1], cell phones will give them cancer,
| tech employees are too poor due to not yet being
| millionaires, etc.
|
| * actual quote from current city council member
| jedberg wrote:
| Oh yes I'm aware of our racist, ageist, and elitist city
| council, but it's mostly a reflection of the population.
| Only 12% of Apple employees actually live here. Although
| it's changing as the old people die and the only people
| who can afford their houses are current tech workers, but
| sadly, most of those current tech workers either don't
| vote or can't vote (lots of immigrants).
|
| This city would be a lot different if we granted the
| right to vote to all of our resident non-citizens, which
| I think we absolutely should do. They live here and pay
| taxes. They should have a voice.
| nawgz wrote:
| I agree, extremely suburban outside the Main St area, but
| in terms of cleanliness and modernness it's a very upscale
| and well maintained area.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Massive perfect roads
|
| > easy access to freeways
|
| Come live here, it's easy to go elsewhere
| nawgz wrote:
| The perceived irony is facile; living in a nice safe area
| with easy commutes to a large amount of places is
| fantastic.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| I'm glad you enjoyed it ;) I was just amusing myself; I
| moved to a semi-rural small town and bought a house that
| was twice the size for less money and can work remotely
| with gigabit internet. There's an Amazon cargo airport
| less than 2 hours away, so surprisingly my deliveries are
| even faster than they were when I lived in the city.
|
| Enjoy suburbia; someone has to.
| aritraghosh007 wrote:
| The Bay Area is 6900 square miles of land and cost of living is
| as high as any other metro on average per square mile. London,
| Tokyo, New York and pretty much every other major metropolis
| has problems akin to the Bay Area but we never quite as
| frequently refer to London or Tokyo "falling apart" the way we
| like to attract all our collective attention to bash the Bay
| Area here.
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| > London, Tokyo, New York and pretty much every other major
| metropolis has problems akin to the Bay Area
|
| I've never lived in the Bay Area/SF so I can't comment on the
| problems there, but I have lived in London for the past few
| years.
|
| I volunteer extensively with the homeless, and I haven't seen
| a fraction of what people describe in San Francisco, or
| anywhere near the level of antisocial behaviour or crime.
| Every week I'm serving food on the streets for at least a few
| hours; I've never once been threatened with anything other
| than words (and even then maybe twice with words?), never
| seen needles lying around (co-volunteers have, not common
| though), and never seen human faeces on the street.
| aritraghosh007 wrote:
| Having lived all my life in several packed downtown metro
| areas all over from Delhi, Mumbai, NYC to San Francisco,
| being safety aware and conscious of your surroundings is
| pure common sense and not just a specific city problem.
| Yes, the political class and municipality can absolutely do
| better to quell the concerns for the wealth and demand the
| metro area attracts as someone pointed out earlier,
| although that's a tangential discussion IMO
| hangonhn wrote:
| I've lived in the Bay Area for 15 years. Except for the
| "poop on street" part, I've never witnessed any of those
| other things in SF or anywhere else either. I've never ever
| been threatened by anything (words or physically) in real
| life (this is true everywhere I've lived: Hong Kong,
| Florida, Connecticut, Texas, SF/Bay Area) In the Bay Area
| I've largely stayed in the less crowded suburbs such as
| Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc. where things are kept
| absurdly clean and orderly (the parks are hosed down at
| least once a week). Last week while going to work in
| Burlingame I did see there was human feces in the parking
| lot but the city sanitation worker was already cleaning it
| up. I do go to SF sometimes to see friends, to go at a
| restaurant (in pre-COVID times), etc. There is a small part
| of SF that gives me uncomfortable feelings but the rest of
| the city has never given me any issues and I've run through
| parts of the city in the middle of the night (during the
| Golden Gate Relay).
|
| I'm not saying that it doesn't happen or that people who
| write about them are being untruthful. However, I do wonder
| if it is the extreme events or experiences that get written
| about and aggregated into news.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The solution has always been fewer rich people, and the
| more they believe this is hell-on-earth, the more they
| will leave and the fewer will come.
|
| Please stay the course and let them have their "reality".
| SirHound wrote:
| Well speaking just for London when I lived there for 12 years
| before leaving commutes were as easy as jumping on the tube
| for 30-40 minutes, pretty reliable from a reasonably priced
| distance. The Bay Area sounds like actual hell in comparison.
| aritraghosh007 wrote:
| "Sounds like actual hell in comparison" What gives that
| assumption?
|
| I have been taking the Caltrain for work in the past
| decade, sure it isn't the most ideal or perfect railway
| system in the world debatably but it sure is the workhorse
| of a bustling population that doesn't get as much praise
| for doing it's job.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| With all of its wealth and demand, the Bay Area should look
| like London or Tokyo or New York. Instead it looks like
| Tracy. It's not falling apart, but neither is it growing up.
| It's stagnant.
| bobsil1 wrote:
| Lowrise with mountains and surf breaks is actually pretty
| nice.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| "Sanitation issues" are isolated to certain neighborhoods in
| San Francisco ("the city"), a 45-minute drive from Cupertino if
| traffic is light.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Just FYI, while cost of living is a problem pretty much
| everywhere in the Bay Area, the infamous sanitation issues are
| isolated to an incredibly tiny portion of the Bay Area.
| bagels wrote:
| What is that even referring to? My sewer works just fine and
| trash is picked up regularly.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Poop everywhere
| flunhat wrote:
| Poop on streets is very common in San Francisco. Most of
| the bay area doesn't have that problem, though.
|
| Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fa
| b72091...
| tshaddox wrote:
| Even in San Francisco it's mostly in a small geographic
| area, although it does happen to overlap closely with
| high foot traffic shopping and tourist areas.
| libria wrote:
| Is this animal poop or human specifically?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Human
| renewiltord wrote:
| There is actually very little evidence for this. It is
| likely that it is mostly dog poop.
|
| EDIT: the comments in response are non-sequiturs. The map
| does not display mostly human poop. It is mostly dog
| poop. I know I know, you see people poop all the time.
| But that's not what the map is.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I was there for 4 days in 2019 and I saw someone poop
| right in front of me. A number of other social issues
| were apparent as well.
| hamburglar wrote:
| Regardless of what the map is about, the statement "poop
| on the streets is very common in San Francisco" is both
| about human and dog poop. The frequency with which people
| encounter human poop on the sidewalk in SF is very, very
| abnormal, even if dog poop is more frequent. One of my
| best friends owns a house on a street which is not a bad
| part of town by any means (both sides of the street are
| lined with immaculately-kept victorians that zillow
| thinks are worth $3+ million) and he has to clean human
| poop off of his own sidewalk about once a month.
| hadlock wrote:
| Market south to Bryant, and 10th st north to the
| waterfront (i.e. SOMA) is a pretty prolific area, I
| frequently see the city deploying porta-potties to keep
| it under control due to the campsites that pop up. Also
| yeah Tenderloin, Lower Nob Hill, Design District, civic
| center, pretty much that whole "fertile" crescent. It's
| no surprise that the city gave twitter huge incentives to
| put their headquarters in between civic center and
| central soma.
|
| I walk my kid to and from daycare in that area and see
| street pooping if not every week, three times a month.
| There's a reason why people move away from the city when
| they have kids. We are not far off from doing the same
| after almost seven otherwise very enjoyable years here.
|
| I've "only" seen two discarded needles on the street the
| entire time I've been here though, one was outside of a
| major grocery store just before Thanksgiving.
|
| The rest of the peninsula is pretty vanilla and mundane
| though. As are the parts of the city not an hour's
| walking distance from market street. It was very
| interesting visiting manhattan though, I'm not sure where
| everyone there goes, but their SOMA-style areas seemed
| overall cleaner than ours, which leads me to believe it's
| partly a city management issue.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I've literally seen someone defecating on the street in
| the TL. But that's the TL. Elsewhere, yes, it's probably
| dog.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Oh yeah, the Bay Area is actually paradise.
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gT5NULvRSk
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtyW4FRn78
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPuMceGWtOQ
| dehrmann wrote:
| Both.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| The homelessness and drug use I hear about in SF really
| boggles my mind. If california were a nation, it's GDP would
| be higher than _the entire nation of india_. Why in god 's
| name can a place as rich as SF and the bay area not address
| their problems? Seriously? This isn't hard. Look at Portugal.
| Are you really telling me this couldn't be done on a smaller
| scale in California? Do they simply not care?
| mancerayder wrote:
| Cynically, the answer that a lot of wealthy people have to
| the problem of inequality is to cut the lower tier loose -
| loose from bail, prisons and restrictions. SF and NYC, two
| cities with Progressive badging, have much bigger problems
| than cities with smaller budgets but wiser (and national)
| housing, healthcare and child care systems. Has anyone
| asked oneself why it's legal in California to pitch a tent
| on a sidewalk or shoot heroin on the sidewalk (in NYC, too,
| now), but stuff like this is barely seen in cities like
| Paris, London and Lisbon? And why we ceases prosecuting
| property crimes?
|
| The answer, I think, is that Progressives in the American
| cities wear their homelessness and drug problems like a
| badge of honor. The messaging appears to be: look at how
| tolerant we are, and if you want to blame someone you can
| blame the rich. They should do better to learn from our
| European friends how to spend tax dollars to help the
| needy.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| ... sanitation problems? Next to Apple Campus? You should go on
| vacation there :)
| emerged wrote:
| Does Apple hire remote only engineers?
| thewebcount wrote:
| I know some people working there who are remote. (For example
| one lives in New York but works for a team that is located in
| Cupertino.) From what they've told me it all depends on what
| you can talk your manager (or a hiring manager) into. If you're
| good enough and they want you badly enough, you can get what
| you want.
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| Amazon upped their L5 and L6 pay bands by 100k on the upper end.
| These companies are having trouble retaining and attracting
| talent, word has also spread on the internet about poor treatment
| of employees. 30k a year is nothing when someone else will give
| you a 150k raise.
| SirHound wrote:
| Apple is clearly an incredibly successful company but to take an
| example why would an energetic young developer ever choose to
| work on Apple Music over Spotify? I say this as an Apple Music
| subscriber but one is a company that is existentially all in and
| the other that sees a revenue stream. This is evident in the
| quality of the respective products. If you're not in the AR/car
| divisions then what is the point.
| TingPing wrote:
| I get your idea, but Spotify isn't exactly an innovative
| company either. They made a product that was successful and
| they simply maintain it while also exploring other revenue
| streams (podcasts, Car Thing).
| lozenge wrote:
| Spotify: not shuffling your playlists for 10 years.
| astrange wrote:
| Music streaming is a terrible business to be existentially
| all in to because the record labels own all the actual music
| and have all the power over you. But you can't do anything
| about it either. So there's not much reason to invest in it.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Because they are just engineers, not the owners of the company.
| SirHound wrote:
| That's almost precisely my point. If I wanted to atrophy on a
| subpar product I'd choose Apple Music too. But I admit I say
| this not knowing the general compensation of either product.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > why would an energetic young developer ever choose to work on
| Apple Music over Spotify? I say this as an Apple Music
| subscriber but one is a company that is existentially all in
| and the other that sees a revenue stream
|
| I imagine some people had similar thoughts when considering
| Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer.
|
| > If you're not in the AR/car divisions then what is the point.
|
| Some people are more interested in a stable paycheck and will
| take a bullshit job to enable it.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Depends on what you think of the business. If Spotify goes down
| you're looking for a new job and all your stock blows up. If
| Apple closes music, you'll have a reasonable chance of getting
| an internal transfer, and the stock will still be there.
| Risk/reward assessment as usual.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Being number one can be downright boring. Spotify is
| incentivized to not rock the boat and keep the profits coming.
| It's very, very difficult to affect big and powerful change in
| that environment.
| jsnell wrote:
| Spotify isn't in a position to just let the profits keep
| coming. In fact, they've never posted a profitable year yet.
| surfer7837 wrote:
| This is only a good thing for us. More demand/competition should
| mean wages rise
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