Apple – “A good place to work”

Pros

Good environment, friendly people who are generally smart and have eclectic backgrounds. You get a lot of freedom to resolve issues. Benefits are decent, and you are working someplace people respect.

Cons

Lower salaries than other companies, so there is more churn than ideal. Getting time off can be a real problem when you are a Senior Advisor/Tier 2 because there just aren't many hours available. Your experience depends almost entirely on how good your manager is, and there are some bad managers. The extreme secrecy about everything can be counterproductive.

Advice to Senior Management

Secrecy in product design and launches makes sense, it builds anticipation and gets great press. But secrecy in corporate decision-making and process changes is counterproductive and makes people feel somewhat helpless. If salaries were improved even a little, it would encourage the best people to stay longer rather than have to go work elsewhere in corporate IT once they have a mortgage and family. Training new people every six months when it would be easy to retain your best and brightest just doesn't make sense. Also, salary reviews once a year may make sense from a management standpoint, but the inflexibility makes your best performers feel under-appreciated.