Apple

3.9

(3,988 Reviews)

Work at Apple?

Join Apple's internal discussion for verified employees only!

4.0

"Good place to be in (for a large company)"

Former Employee • w***** • Staff Engineer • May 19 2026

Pros

• Most of people are very smart and nice
• Compensation is very good
• Workload comes in waves but not bad overall

Cons

• Your previous experience/knowledge doesn't buy you anything until you prove yourself at Apple
• Some people think that they are the smartest people and that they work in the best company in the world - anything not done "Apple-way" is met with distrust. You need to build a reputation and put in an effort to change anything.

5.0

"Good experience"

Current Employee • f***** • Marketing Campaign Manager • August 6 2026

Pros

• Work life balance and job security are good. Not many layoffs.

Cons

• Lower comp vs rest of tech and benefits aren’t amazing

1.0

"Toxic Culture"

Former Employee • l********* • Display Engineer • August 6 2026

Pros

• No layoffs, 25% employee discount, and “prestige” of having worked at Apple.

Cons

• Work is not meaningful or intellectually stimulating.
• DRI concept makes it lonely, not a lot of collaboration.
• Little to no actual skills growth beyond keynote generation.
• Toxic/hierarchical management that is very top-down.
• Low total compensation, even compared to non-AI companies.

4.0

"Great place to work"

Current Employee • v***** • Software Engineer • August 5 2026

Pros

• TC is great. Depending on what org you land it WLB can also be great

Cons

• Everything is a priority culture is a real bummer. Depending on where you land upper management can be real ball chasers.

3.0

"Just a job"

Current Employee • s******* • Firmware Engineer • August 4 2026

Pros

• Interesting tech
• Pay is decent
• Treat it as a 9-5 and you will be alright

Cons

• Expected to work longer hours. You need to be able to push back on this. Apple will take every hour you give it.

4.0

"Standard company"

Current Employee • s******* • Engineer • August 4 2026

Pros

• Decent WLB, encourages teamwork. Lots of interesting things to do.

Cons

• Frugal, need to pay for company gym. Lunch is expensive and small.

4.0

"Good job"

Current Employee • U********* • Senior Firmware Engineer • August 3 2026

Pros

• They pay well enough. Not great but good. Food is decent.

Cons

• Kinda boring busy work. Not a lot of opportunities innovate or make a big difference.

4.0

"Good company"

Current Employee • b***** • Senior Business Intelligence Developer • August 2 2026

Pros

• Good company with good people.

Cons

• The Management can be better.

4.0

"Competitive pay for HW, manageable WLB in some teams"

Current Employee • u****** • ASIC Design Engineer IV • August 1 2026

Pros

• Competitive pay for hardware engineers, especially in silicon engineering.
• Manageable work life balance in some teams, highly dependent on first line manager.

Cons

• Around the clock meetings due to east/west colleagues.
• Peaks of several weeks of stress before critical milestones.
• Perks are some of the worst in the industry.

4.0

"Grind but great learning"

Current Employee • T***** • Global Supply Manager • July 31 2026

Pros

• Compensation is good and Apple is a great company. Lots of learning to be had

Cons

• Long hours. Work balance is tough getting used to but benefits make up for it.

3.0

"Challenging Problems - very corporate setup"

Current Employee • f***** • Machine Learning Engineer • July 31 2026

Pros

• Interesting problems depending on the team.
• Very lax firing culture (which can be a good and bad thing).
• Good AI forward policies regarding Claude etc.
• Apple product discounts.

Cons

• Depending on org many middle layers.
• Lots of politics.
• Very product focused; the churn isn't always on for the next one before the current product lifecycle completes.
• No visibility to work of other teams/departments.
• Company-wide software tooling seriously lacking.

4.0

"Good to work"

Current Employee • o***** • Software Engineer • July 31 2026

Pros

• Good benefits & growth opportunities.
• Relatively free in what you want to do and focus on.

Cons

• Too many presentations.
• Using keynote as kind of documentation.
• In some departments - lack of engineering principles.

5.0

"Good teams, interesting work."

Current Employee • h***** • Hardware Engineer • July 29 2026

Pros

• Work is interesting, and team members are very helpful. No layoffs yet so no stress from that.

Cons

• So far not really. Mobility could be lower compared to startups, but you choose the no layoff environment.

3.0

"Decent work life balance but little to no growth"

Current Employee • a***** • Design Verification Engineer • July 29 2026

Pros

• High to decent compensation. Work life balance is nice. Little to no fear of layoffs.

Cons

• Very little learning and growth opportunities. Depends heavily on the managers if they have a vision and will to grow their team members.

5.0

"Worse work life balance"

Current Employee • p******** • Software Developer • July 29 2026

Pros

• Initial compensation.
• Stocks.
• Brand on resume.

Cons

• No documents.
• Politics everywhere.
• No place for talent.
• No processes.
• No one knows who owns what.

4.0

"For hardware, better than industry standard"

Current Employee • y***** • Product Design Engineer • July 29 2026

Pros

• Better WFH policy than any other mechanical hardware company out there.

Cons

• Ownership is smaller than that of a startup. More removed from product.

5.0

"Nice WLB"

Current Employee • Y***** • Software Developer • July 28 2026

Pros

• WLB is good and no layoff concern. Management is pretty good.

Cons

• Too chill. Not sure about growth. Can see the future 10 years.

4.0

"Managed to get a good work life balance after gaining seniority and proving myself."

Current Employee • k***** • UX Research • July 27 2026

Pros

• Working with talented IC, and a lot of room for career growth.

Cons

• Management don’t know how to people manage, and some are outright incompetent.

5.0

"Great company to work for"

Current Employee • G***** • Software Engineer • July 26 2026

Pros

• Great coverage of healthcare, employee discounts. Full autonomy to solve problems and implement solutions.

Cons

• Not enough leaves. No free food. Pantry only got coffee and tea. No snacks.

4.0

"Work life balance dependent on team"

Current Employee • c******** • Senior Software Engineer • July 23 2026

Pros

• Interesting work, great team members who are helpful and collaborative. Generous AI allowance of $200 per day.

Cons

• Difficult to get converted to full-time from contractor if team doesn't have headcount.

2.0

"Not great WLB ok compensation but getting worse"

Current Employee • Y***** • Engineer • July 23 2026

Pros

• Compensation was ok compared to market price, but getting worse in these days.

Cons

• Work life balance is bad and people think it's not a problem.

3.0

"WLB is good"

Current Employee • a***** • Senior Software Developer • July 22 2026

Pros

• WLB is good here and you don’t have much pressure.

Cons

• Career slow to grow and the tech is old stack.

5.0

"Good work life balance in ASE but not much room for growth"

Current Employee • s*********** • Senior Software Engineer • July 20 2026

Pros

• Good company to work for early in your career but you will stall at ICT4. Feels like the only way for high compensation here is getting hired at ICT5 initially.

Cons

• ICT5 seems out of reach for normies like me. No valuable or high-impact work.

4.0

"Toxic environment, easy to coast"

Current Employee • l***** • Analog/Mixed Signal Design Engineer • July 19 2026

Pros

• Amazing products, access to state-of-the-art technology and tools.

Cons

• HWT is so toxic. Mediocre management, busy pretending to be useful. Zero upstream communication accepted. Graveyard for careers. Spend a few years there and you are stuck there for good since you are not useful for anyone else.

5.0

"Good place to rest and vest"

Current Employee • k********* • Senior Staff Software Engineer • July 19 2026

Pros

• No big layoffs. No other pros I can think of.

Cons

• Full of politics. A lot of Indians. Too many layers of middle management.

1.0

"Extremely bad management and work life balance and nepotism."

Current Employee • C********* • Hardware Engineer • July 18 2026

Pros

• Better compensation but (a big But) only after 4 years when refreshers start accumulating. But you are already thinking of leaving after being burnt out and overworked.

Cons

• Hire and fire culture in HWT. Management nepotism huge and people from the same race and areas get promoted while doing nothing except giving orders. Projects being started and suddenly cancelled all the time without anyone even blinking an eye about how much effort ICTs put into it. Overall no culture, no team environment, and no growth at all. Especially Managers from companies that were bought by Apple are the worst as they come with their favorites in the previous company when acquired and build a castle for themselves while hiring and burning out new ICTs by overworking them to the Manager's advantage and ICTs have to eventually leave because either you lose your mental health or leave the company. Yeah, if you want growth, team environment, work life balance, and opportunity to evolve and grow, then don't join Apple HWT. And yeah, impossible to change teams.

3.0

"Bad work life balance"

Current Employee • f***** • Program Manager • July 18 2026

Pros

• Glamor (faded now though).
• Stock growth has been steady so far.

Cons

• Burnout is unavoidable.
• No career growth.
• Office politics is real.

3.0

"Compensation is good, poor growth prospects"

Current Employee • H***** • Hardware Engineering • July 17 2026

Pros

• More compensation than previous hardware/IC company. More than double for me.

Cons

• Poor growth, no future for our team. Team management is rigid and afraid of change. Management is also not technically strong enough to learn from. Too much fighting for scope between team and even between colleagues.

3.0

"Not bad work-life balance"

Current Employee • c***** • Project Manager • July 17 2026

Pros

• Not bad benefit, food at AP is good, free phone.

Cons

• Too much politics, how you do doesn't matter at all.

4.0

"Nice place to work"

Current Employee • Q******** • Staff Scientist • July 17 2026

Pros

• Job safety, nice products to work for and high margins.

Cons

• Slow growth, management can be rough sometimes depending on which team you work in.

4.0

"Great WLB and Stability"

Current Employee • x********* • Software Engineer • July 16 2026

Pros

• Great WLB and manager and team are incredibly competent people.

Cons

• Work can be less interesting than other companies. Less exciting.