[enentique]

Additionally the detailed reviews by employees of Apple also echo these numbers.

“Management burns through employees with no regard to their long-term value—many management decisions seem to be based upon how long the employees involved will put up with the demands placed on them.

Depending on your exact job and how little time is left in the product cycle, vacation time and even weekends are privileges that you may not be given the opportunity to afford. If WWDC is rescheduled at the last minute, for example, hundreds of engineers will be asked to change their vacations, even if they've already made plans (and paid for tickets).

At the end of a cycle, a $20 bottle of wine or a $50 iPod shuffle reflect the gratitude you'll receive, and the value of your work to your management. It is against Apple policy for your name to be recognized externally; only Steve Jobs' name, or the names of those he picks to introduce them, can be associated with a product release.

At least one division was giving less than 3% in average yearly salary increases to critical senior engineers, while the company's profits soared. And if you're a manager, it's not discouraged for you to go several years without accepting a raise, just so you can use the budget savings for your staff's salaries.

It's a well-known secret that the best way to get a large raise and promotion at Apple is to leave and be hired back a few years later into the new position.”

“There has been a consensus for a long time, even its among top engineers, that Apple does not tend to promote people or compensate them fairly. Have you ever seen Apple on the Forbes 100 Best Places to Work?' Enough said. You will be just a number to them if you decide to join their ranks. The focus is purely on product and the bottom line, which of course is no surprise in the corporate world. But if you're a corporate hooch, I guess you won't mind that. 'Think Different!' Ahem. And here's some juicy gossip: Steve is afraid of donuts! How do I know? Because he banned them, along with balloons from Macs cafe. He also has a fear of buttons. Origin of this phobia - unknown. But here is what you should be afraid of my friends; the tendency that Apple and just about every company these days has to keep Permatemps. You may want to board the Mother Ship so badly it hurts, but take my advice and do it the regular way, through the Apple hiring process. Don't go through an 'agency.' Basically they are in the business of laundering...people. These are shady operations that are not even real companies and are in cahoots with Apple to deny you benefits or any basic rights, all while forcing you to do the same work and keep exactly the same hours as employees. For what? Surely not for your benefit.”

“Apple corporate memory is very spotty at best strewn across emails and bug reports and the occassional standalone blog. It is very difficult to come up to speed. Information is also highly restricted by project rather than cross-functional which makes work difficult and design from foresight very difficult. Every part of the entire software stack is modified at once throughout a new OS product / version cycle including dev tools. QA is much, much too sparse and Apple depends on all devs eating the dog food while trying to meet their own very aggressive schedules. In the groups I experienced their is very little real design except in the heads of individual engineers. Their software stack sucks. Objective C is archaic and long of tooth as a dev environment. Every developer regardless of seniority and experience is expected to sling fixed bugs (radars) at a certain rate to be seen as worth keeping around. Everyone has to prove they are a good Apple drone before they can do anything creative. And/or they have to work nights and weekends (if they don't already have to to even keep up) to do something that gets them beyond drone mode and have some measure of control over their time and destiny. The people that make it seem to all work 60 hours or more a week.”

And my theory about people being affected by the RDF also stands:
“Apple doesn't just have employees; they have True Believers. Most people begin working for the company because they're long-term Apple customers. Some grew up hoping to work for Apple one day"

Think about it. If Agathon had any real skills and Apple wanted to hire him for $30K less than MS, do you think he'd work for MS?