Apple – “Apple was a huge disappointment.”

Pros

It is nice to be around so may really bright people and I did pretty well financially with my stock options/employee stock purchase plan.

Cons

As a female engineer, it was impossible for me to develop or even stay up to date. There were
"some" really great guys who treated me as an equal from the first moment. However, there were
too many others who excluded me, talked down to me, and discounted or ignored what I had to say.

I was shut out from the projects and information that I needed to stay up to day or develop as an
engineer. I did everything in my power to try to get around this, and was still shut out.

They have a diversity program, but are very naive about what is really going on.

I also got the distinct impression that the software engineers would never get the same respect and
status as the hardware engineers.

In addition, certain people, would obstruct teamwork and information sharing presumably to
preserve their job security.

The last thing that really bothered me was that certain teams were required to work seven days a week for 2 or 3 months straight, in order to get a product out.

Advice to Senior Management

First level managers and program managers should get a lot more training than they do today.

Working 7 days a week makes people's total output go DOWN. Set the right weekly milestones and have people go home and recharge on the weekends. They will get MORE done every week.