COVID made my situation worse at Apple. I worked in a satellite office (NYC), and while in the office, most folks in California were reluctant to schedule meetings later than ~2pm california time because they didn't want to keep people in the office late. When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week, I guess because the managers figured that we were already home.

> Having left, I forgot what it was like to be able to focus on something other than Apple

Definitely sympathize there; we weren't even allowed to leave Github issues without Legal's approval, and when I wanted to open source something (basically an HLS server I wrote to handle my home security system), I was told that a) it was too competitive with Apple because my project had to do with video, and b) there's no such thing as "my own time" with Apple, since I was salaried and well-compensated.

> When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week

This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button. An outage or something disastrous, sure I'll stay online till midnight to help in anyway I can; a regular status update type meeting, no way.

In principle, I agree, but I should point out that "No meetings outside regular daylight hours" and "My employer shouldn't care where in the world I do my job" are not compatible with each other.

In the course of a week, I collaborate literally with people in the UK, California, China, and Saudia Arabia. People are occasionally have to take meetings outside daylight hours. Best we can do is to (a) minimize the number of meetings overall (a lot more things can be done asynchronously that is often acknowledged) and (b) spread the pain fairly so nobody has to always take meetings at awkward hours.

Absolutely agree. Also, if you expect people to be switched on at 9pm, be flexible about them not responding first thing the next morning.

I interviewed with a company who is on the west coast. I'm in Ireland. We overlap for a few hours during their morning. Every interview was scheduled during their afternoon. I always asked to move it to an earlier spot. Seems like this conscious awareness of other people isn't automatic.

My view: if you're a global company, you need to instill in your employees a respect for time zones. You need your employees to be aware of where their colleagues are and what their "normal" working hours are. You to be intentional about this and actually say it. At a previous company the CEO actually took a minute during an all-hands to say "Look everyone, we're a global company now and we're hiring like crazy in Europe. Be respectful of timezones. If you need to talk to a colleague in Europe, do it during your morning". That was enough to ensure that most of my meetings happened before 5pm local time, and when they didn't, you'd have at least one person during the meeting say things like "let's cover X first so @raffraffraff can get off the call early" or "guys, we're going off-topic and we've got colleagues from Europe on the call". It normalised consideration.

> spread the pain fairly so nobody has to always take meetings at awkward hours.

That was my biggest issue; obviously a late meeting or two occasionally is fine. It's a distributed team, that's a necessary evil. It just bothered me that, after COVID, they made zero attempt at even trying accommodate the satellite offices.

> In principle, I agree, but I should point out that "No meetings outside regular daylight hours" and "My employer shouldn't care where in the world I do my job" are not compatible with each other.

Not if you're all in North America. I've worked for two large, distributed companies in the last several years, where I reside in Eastern time zone. There's enough overlap between me and teammates in the Pacific time zone that evening meetings are never necessary.

Yeah, I don't get that one. You need to be in some really extreme timezones to not have any overlap. I worked with both UK and US from Australia (not Apple) and it was possible. Occasionally I'd do a meeting at night and start later the next day, but it was always my choice.

I used to work with people from PST (-8), CET (+1) and KST (+9). The meeting planner [0] shows no "acceptable" overlap, but we made it work by doing meetings very rarely, planning them far in advance and essentially taking turns which timezone gets the late (22-23) or early (6-7) slots. This was despite the fact that there was a clear hierarchy - sometimes the boss got up at 4 or stayed up until 23 so we wouldn't have to.

[0] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=...

As I said, our team is literally spread evenly around the globe (though not nearly in equal numbers). Every hour of the day is bound to be awkward for someone.

In those cases we split the meeting and someone sent in the notes async. At the level where all those people absolutely must be present... I would hope they're paid enough and have enough agency in their roles to figure out the solution.

India is 10.5 hours from both coasts of the US (for most of the year).

If two employees work at the same local times, they have to work an 11 hour day to have 30 minutes of overlap.

Try UTC+12/13 and having to regularly coordinate with Europe :)

Working with the US and Asia is fine though, always have a couple of hours of overlap.

> This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button.

Depends on your MacOS version.

In Mojave there’s actually no meaningful way to interact with an invite through a notification. There’s a dropdown but it’s not reachable. It only appears if you mouse over where the “x” button should be, which causes the button and dropdown to appear. If you move the mouse off this button both the button and the dropdown vanish.

Also, I’m afraid to click that “x” because I’m still not sure if it dismisses the notification or declines the invite.

And I still can’t figure out how to decline from the calendar with a message. I have to go to my deleted items in Mail and reply to the invite there.

I do freely decline status update meetings at unreasonable hours, and most people reading this are probably in a position where they should too. The problem is with things like design reviews and planning meetings, where declining just means people are going to make decisions without you.

I didn't feel like that was really an option. It became recurring meetings three times a week, and I got the vibe of "if you don't go, it's gonna look bad".

It may or may not have been an option. If you never try it definitely wasn't an option.

I have never worked at a FAANG myself, so this might not be something that works in those places. But what I do is to simply put "Out of Office" on my calendar outside of my core working hours. I don't even have to decline. I can honestly say that it was automated and I never even saw their invite. If someone complained about it I would tell them that I can definitely make exceptions, just need to check w/ the SO as she might have a meeting she can't move and we have the kids to take care of. I also don't react well to invites over night. I have my calendar in my head well enough to know when to wake up/be home etc. for the first meeting. So something you put on my calendar "in between" will in most if not all cases not even be seen. I do not have notifications enabled on my cell. This has so far worked without fail and only a few people have ever asked me for a specific slot and moving something. Basically the OoO reply get them to rethink and at the very least they know they gotta talk to me first and can't just plug something on my calendar and I will show up.

That said, any regular meeting someone puts on my calendar in a free slot with enough notice I will simply accept, be there and do my best to contribute. Meetings someone puts in 5 minutes before (or worse, yes this has happened during the meeting) and then ping me "are you coming" will result in a very stubborn me. Yes I would quit over someone throwing a fit for my stubbornness. No it has never been necessary. They all backpaddled.

That no office communication on personal phone has worked wonders for me as well. And my personal numbers is for emergencies only.

Not turning up last minute meetings have also worked well. I mean I was shocked but people actually need to be told you’re not available at one ping and then they mend their ways. Start saying yes, it gets worse.

Back in the 90s, my father had a method of pre-vacation scheduling. He announced to all his colleagues that X day before he left was the last day he was accepting new work to finish before leaving.

Inevitably, someone would come by the day before he left, and ask him if he could do one more critical thing.

He reminded them what he said, explained he was finishing work others had asked of him, and didn't have the time for their work before he left, but he'd be happy to look at it when he got back.

Next vacation announcement, that person made their requests earlier.

Scheduling has its own cultural mores and Overton window, and there's no "right." If you're unhappy with its current coverage: push it in the direction you want. People will adjust.

You can say "No" nicely and without being an asshole.

Yep, just set boundaries. If your boundaries become a problem for someone higher up, they will raise it with you. Don't ask, just do.

Too many people assume they need to take meetings whenever and they'll put up with it quietly for years, never feeling confident enough to just assert themselves or set working hours in Google Calendar.

I completely agree with and get what you’re saying. It does feel like that. And if you think you won’t be getting another job you’d feel that way strongly.

But it takes just once. At the new starup I am working I simply pressed “Decline” for “all events” that were out of my timezone except the ones that happen 3-4 times a month total.

Blocked my calendar after 6pm with an automated message clearly mentioning that it was night for me and ask the person to reach out about it and that if it’s a recurring meeting I simply won’t be able to attend.

It’s been 6 months since and it has worked fine. Some other people started doing it in my country after that. Also US colleagues now ask us, earlier they assumed we will just be there.

And yes, I was ready to resign if someone even someone above me in hierarchy even so much as questioned the autonomy of my personal time that’s other than those 8 hours on weekday.

It’s not like I have too much financial cushion, I don’t. But I realised it’s not worth it and when you start saying yes to it, it keeps increasing, keeps piling up. Never stops, never comes down. Saying no sooner is better than saying no late.

Just like dictators and autocrats such companies feed on our fears. The moment we lose them they either run into the ground or they fall in line.

> Blocked my calendar after 6pm with an automated message clearly mentioning that it was night for me and ask the person to reach out about it and that if it’s a recurring meeting I simply won’t be able to attend.

> It’s been 6 months since and it has worked fine. Some other people started doing it in my country after that. Also US colleagues now ask us, earlier they assumed we will just be there.

I work remotely, and did something similar while I was in Europe for a month. Worked a mostly overlapping schedule (so I could take advantage of the morning / early afternoons), and then blocked off the late evening on my calendar. Never really was a problem, and helped ensure everyone was on the same page.

What does “look bad” mean exactly?

Never promoted? Fired?

It just means “fear and inertia”, mostly unfounded and even if not simply not worth it. It’s just that.

Suffered from it long. Then one day I did the opposite and never looked back.

Mostly the former, it's pretty hard to get fired at Apple. Still, if the managers don't like me they won't give me fun work, since my team was big on "you don't get to do satisfying work until you prove yourself with unsatisfying stuff".

Ugh, that sucks :(

This is unhelpful. Nobody gets total control of their time in employment, and some people get a lot less control than others.

Set boundaries.

Decide if someone violating them is worth quitting over. It's a competitive market, and frankly - Many of the FAANG companies are terrible to work for.

No one is saying you have total control of your schedule - but if I'm consistently asked to take a meeting at 9pm my time... I'll have a meeting with my manager, and it will consist of the following: "I will quit if they keep asking me to meet when I'd like to be reading bedtime stories to my kid".

So far - I have not had to quit, and I don't take 9pm meetings. I find your meek & bleak acquiescence unhelpful.

> Many of the FAANG companies are terrible to work for.

How’s F and G and N (Netflix right?)?

Friend works at G India. Sings paeans . He moved there after 6 months at Uber (where I resigned in a week).

I have always heard shitty things about AA though so I guess that kinda settles it.

All the FAANG companies have bad aspects to them. Some are more likely to have them than others. But those are averages, and I find that the biggest contributor to your workplace culture will be which specific team you’re on and not the company you’re at. (I know plenty of people at Apple and Amazon who are perfectly happy with their situation, and some at the others who aren’t. But I think the work/life balance on average tends to be worse there, yes.)

Netflix for some unknown reason. That's why I like GMAFIA.

What is the I?

I like MAGMA which requires using Meta but not Alphabet.

Put your work hours in your calendar and auto decline everything outside those hours. Refuse that nonsense.

thats how you get PIPed

Just finished 13 months at my new startup employer from USA. Personal time imbalance has been a polite and cold confrontation often and I simply never budged. So much that I’ve got “that reputation” here. It’s just around 400 people across the world.

Delivered my work really well. Was rated 4 out of 5 - 5 being best. No one even mentioned that part of my decision. I am fiercely professional and diligent about my work and product I own in my work hours just like I am fiercely protective of my personal time.

And yes, maybe they need me, maybe they will aks me to leave, maybe they’ll PIP me (that’d ne ridiculous though), something else.

But I’ll not budge. That simple.

With that short incomplete sentence what you’re trying to say is - and I won’t point directly at you, I’ll just try to expand/translate - one is afraid of losing the job and actually more afraid of getting another one, one is afraid of not getting that high a salary, loans/EMIs, etc. You may be right. Or that it’s just like that everywhere (this is not true at all).

So like everything else in life nothing comes free and without risk.

It depends heavily on the company and the specific team/org. Where I'm at, this behavior will more likely get the manager PIP'd for not being inclusive and fostering a healthy team dynamic.

Manager wants to hire across time zones to hit their headcount? Go for it, but be they'd better be ready to make accommodations for doing so.

I freely decline meetings too. Usually, add a note saying it is family time or unreasonable time for a meeting.

Never been a problem.

Possibly but I've never encountered a company that felt they had control of my time after hours and wouldn't have stayed at one which did.

Join a union

If you work for a company that toxic you should find a new job.

> b) there's no such thing as "my own time" with Apple, since I was salaried and well-compensated.

Is there 1 FAANG company that is the most friendly/accomodating to someone who wants to develop their own software/indiegames on the side?

Google has a thing called "IARC" (https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing#...) where you make an application with details about what you're done or have done, and if it's approved, you get to own the copyright.

If you want to release it as open source and don't care about owning the copyright, there's a process you can go through to release a new open source project. If you just want to send patches to an existing project, you can generally just do that, as long as the project has an approved open source license and is not on the (short) list of disallowed projects.

I don't currently work there, so take this with a grain of salt, that said, it would seem Google is a lot more relaxed about this sort of thing than any other large company I've seen. Lots of ex-Google employees end up doing all sorts of things and lots of Googlers participate in open source

Not FAANG, but GitHub explicitly allows employees to work on side-projects while retaining the IP rights, and you get paid Microsoft stock.

Whats hilarious is that this is definitely not the case for regular MS employees

The MS employees I've met/interviewed were literally not allowed to read open source code or sample code on Q&A websites. Of course that was mostly 5+ years ago and I don't exactly ask them if their policies have changed.

When at Microsoft I was expected to be on top of Stack Overflow for our product, and there's a whole program where if you contribute to open source you get to vote on where the monthly OSS sponsorship goes.

I've linked to WebKit source before in exec reviews and no one bats an eye. So, changed, I'd say.

Im on StackOverflow all the time and we use OSS code all over the place. Either they were pulling your leg or you badly misunderstood something they said.

I did not. Talk to some MacBU people.

It is in California at least - you can moonlight on whatever you want when you are not on company time or equipment.

Our vacation also doesn't expire and we also don't have non-compete clauses.

This is not how California law works, because you left out the (in this case very important) part where this is exclusive to things that don’t compete with your employer. If you work at a FAANG, the number of things they work on is very large and consequently they will claim large control over what you do.

Which means it will eventually be the law.

Netflix. As long as you don't compete directly with the business, the company doesn't care (at least that's how I interpreted my contract when I joined a while ago).

> As long as you don't compete directly with the business, the company doesn't care

I've found, as long as you're not making money no one cares what you're doing. As soon as money starts coming in, a lot of people are very interested in what you're doing. My totally uninformed guess would be that one of the first questions Netflix (or really any company) has about your off-company-time product is 1) does it make money and 2) how much. The answers to those questions will determine how the conversation goes from there, and how many lawyers are involved.

Bingo. Not FAANG but it definitely works like that in Ubisoft.

Not FAANG but Red Hat employees can contribute to open source on their own time — even if it competes with something that Red Hat makes.

Does Red Hat even make proprietary software? I thought the business model was to open source everything and charge for enterprise support and cloud services?

Right, it's all open source, but you could be making after-work contributions to open source projects that might not be in the interest of Red Hat, and that's perfectly fine.

The policy is public: https://www.redhat.com/licenses/RH_CoC-June_2020_Eng.pdf

"Participation in an open source community project, whether maintained by the Company or by another commercial or non-commercial entity or organization, does not constitute a conflict of interest even where you may make a determination in the interest of the project that is adverse to the Company’s interests."

A lot of employees were concerned about losing this after the IBM acquisition, but the former CEO made a lot of promises to us especially to protecting our autonomy, and (so far) IBM has kept those commitments to us.

I cannot imagine a more open source friendly place to work. I'm constantly surprised by how other companies operate open source projects or treat their employees who want to contribute to them (at work or otherwise). Unfortunately as Red Hat gets larger, we hire more people without that love of open source and they want to do things differently, but thankfully they don't get much traction.

Is that still true, post-IBM?

Can confirm this is still true, yes.

Develop or sell? No one cares unless you want to be a big name or big money.

>there's no such thing as "my own time" with Apple

Companies that aren't nearly as "cool" and pay a fraction, can be just as possessive or more so.

I am well aware of the saying "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" and how some rules are broken by everyone with a tacit understanding.

However, once when I investigated volunteering for an extremely well known and mainstream nonprofit, they gave me some required paperwork, which said that any IP created during my volunteer work belonged to them.

I didn't have a firm intention to do IT work as a volunteer or not, but I was told I had to sign to volunteer regardless.

I thought I would ask my employer if I could sign the agreement; if it was compatible with the stuff I'd already signed, that asserted ownership of work outside of regular hours, if related to the business.

At a lower level, people had no idea. It was passed up the chain all the way to the chief corporate counsel or whoever, and eventually they said no, with an air of "WTF why are you wasting my time?".

I felt like the ultimate decisionmakers can live in a different reality, where things don't happen because nobody has an incentive to tell them.

I didn't particularly mind, since I wasn't set on that particular organization to volunteer with, and I learned something.

This is true globally.

Remote work became anytime work.

Most arent as blatant as setting up ridiculous times in the calendar, but the same goal is achieved by more insidious means. For example, a manager assigning a task that needs to be completed before the next day at 5pm.

Woz to HP management: "Hey, I know we already sell computers, want to have a look at this one? If not, can I sell it myself?"

HP to Woz: "Sure, go for it, good luck."

Apple to their own employees: "Uh, let's see here.... how about 'No.' Does 'No' work? Good, then we'll go with 'No.'"

Gotta love the Valley. You either flame out early, or you live long enough to become the face on the telescreen.

To be fair, the modern Apple is all Steve Jobs and Jobs always had this mentality that you are bashing. Seems like any Wozniak related mentality left the building when they dumped Apple II. And well can you really argue with the results? Apple was near bankruptcy trying to compete on the same plane as other personal computers.

I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.

It's a reference to Apple's 1984 commercial

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

They have not only become exactly what they fought against, they've refined it to perfection.

But it is a non-sequitur because Apple hasn't let any world changing tech developed by there employees to be spun out with no financial interest.

Yeah, and that's the idea behind the complaint. After getting their start thanks in part to HP's generosity, Apple's management tries to do everything possible to make sure the same thing doesn't happen at their company. It's hypocrisy in action.

Ooooo yes that makes sense

> Definitely sympathize there; we weren't even allowed to leave Github issues without Legal's approval...

This strongly anti-OSS policy makes me very sad, I occasionally see Apple employees in GitHub issues essentially saying they would fix this problem they're seeing themselves but are forbidden from participating by their employer (Apple). Seems like such a waste. Everyone has their price and priorities, definitely solving interesting problems at work and being paid well for it can outweigh satisfaction from OSS, but just seems so needless for the wealthiest organization in the world.

Fair warning: my experience has been very different than yours or tombert's in most respects and some things have changed over time (some OSS contributions are now much easier, a very recent change). It is also the first company I've worked for that backed up appreciation for my efforts with compensation to match, and where my management chain cared about burnout and mental health with actions rather than empty words.

It is still primarily an on-site company. That might mean on-site an an office in San Diego, Austin, Philadelphia, NYC, etc. But in-office nonetheless.

Every team does things differently, even down to the department or individual manager level. Compared to the other FAANGs it is far more varied in most respects. Just because someone didn't like (or loves) their role doesn't mean you will feel the same way about it. If possible I recommend talking to people who work in the department you are interested in.

> It is still primarily an on-site company.

At some point I would like people to quit vilifying a completely legitimate business setup because it doesn't fit their world view.

I want to be in the office, and I prefer it when my coworkers are there too. I respect that not everyone feels the same - but I do think it is up to the employer to decide. So I will be picking companies that suit my preferences.

But there is legitimate reason to villify. I can't speak for Apple specifically, but many companies are no longer matching the CoL increases. Housing prices are steadily increasing, and so is rent. Many have to resort to longer commutes, buying cars, and such. All of these have detrimental effects to the environment, mental health or both.

Pushing people back to the office with nothing else is incredibly tonedeaf to the current state and trend of the world. This despite many of them putting up the image they care about these things.

You may not like hearing this but if you're a white-collar worker earning 6 figures and guaranteed to continue earning 6 figures for the rest of your career, you aren't entitled to CoL increases. Your employer is not a villain nor are they morally culpable just because they've made a business decision around how much salary increases they want to give their already privileged employees. Or a business decision regarding their work-from-home policy.

If you're not happy, leave and work for a company that better matches what you're looking for. I would be furious if my ex-employer was giving me bad references just because I wanted to work-from-home or asked for a higher salary. And I would similarly not go around vilifying my ex-employer just because they wanted to offer me a lower salary or have me in the office regularly.

> I would be furious if my ex-employer was giving me bad references just because I wanted to work-from-home or asked for a higher salary. And I would similarly not go around vilifying my ex-employer just because they wanted to offer me a lower salary or have me in the office regularly.

That's not similar at all. The employer has all the power and money, not the individual. If the individual did, they wouldn't need to work anymore.

> I can't speak for Apple specifically, but many companies are no longer matching the CoL increases. Housing prices are steadily increasing, and so is rent.

I can't help but wonder if this is the flip side to the Silicon Valley mantra of "if you want a raise, job hop," where hitting your four-year anniversary with the same company makes you an old-timer and gets people on HN asking you if you're stupid. (Hopefully more politely than that, but that's absolutely the subtext of some recent message threads I've seen.) If the expectation on the company side is that they shouldn't plan on on any engineering staff being there more than a few years, then maybe it tacitly selects for "give employees a big bonus and lots of perks and just don't worry about raises because there ain't nothin' you can do to keep 'em".

And, of course, there's a chicken-or-egg aspect to that: did job-hopping become the norm because companies aren't giving them enough reason to stay, or vice-versa? When I moved out to Silicon Valley close to twenty years ago, I'd have placed the blame for that particular new normal on the companies, but after having read HN for the better part of the last decade, I'm considerably less certain of that.

> I can't help but wonder if this is the flip side to the Silicon Valley mantra of "if you want a raise, job hop," where hitting your four-year anniversary with the same company makes you an old-timer and gets people on HN asking you if you're stupid. (Hopefully more politely than that, but that's absolutely the subtext of some recent message threads I've seen.)

I think that comes from misreading stats. If a company has huge growth and hires a bunch of new people, the average lifespan of an employee will obviously go down.

There's many well known Apple engineers (in OS software at least) who've been there for decades.

Well, it comes from reading HN. :) That's clearly anecdotal, but if you're a regular reader you've surely come across the job-hopping advice here! I've seen "the way you get a raise is by switching companies" as advice over and over and over here, and I don't think it's just a small selection of malcontents I just keep running into.

Companies whose primary business is hardware seem to be more likely to keep people around for longer periods of time -- Apple, Intel, Cisco, National Semiconductor back when they were a going concern. Software companies, though, particularly ones in Silicon Valley (or following a Silicon Valley ethos)? As someone who's going to hit their four-year anniversary at their current workplace in a week, I feel like the oddball.

That's certainly true about hardware companies - the cycle of product inception to release is often large enough that if you followed the "advice" here you would never actually experience the full cycle.

I work on software at a similar company - and it certainly seems to have a significantly higher "employment age" than people seem possible here - I've worked here for 4 years and still one of the "new" ones. Some of that I feel due to a good work/life balance (And decent enough pay :), and a culture I find to be pleasant (I worked with Apple employees for a while, for example, and still don't understand why people put up with the crap I saw when there's a healthy job market).

But I wonder if there's something to be said for the work itself - people have been here for ages and still doing new things - one year you may be working on texture pipelines, the next a deep dive in ray tracing. Sure, they're kinda similar, but I feel it may be more rewarding than redesigning a perfectly good UI for the 5th time, or replacing whatever javascript framework you used to use with the "New Hotness".

There is also the argument that a staff of engineers wants real data to back up decisions and policy. "because mangers like to look over your shoulder" isn't a good reason

I think what you mean is that "people who moved outside the bay area got more house for their money", but the reason they got paid so much in the first place is because housing is more expensive.

I did not. I specifically mentioned my lack of experience with Apple to signal experiences outside the bay area, or the US for that matter. In many countries, total comp has barely moved whereas housing has become way more expensive, even during COVID.

At some point I would like people to quit vilifying a completely legitimate business setup because it doesn’t fit their world view as well. But as you can guess from my lead up, I look at it from the opposite direction.

If there is no reason for software developers (or other IT professionals who don’t have to have physical access to the servers to do their jobs) to be in the office, and we have been far more productive at home than we have been in an office that requires 2 hours of commute, extra expenditures for food, an increased chance of viral infection, noise cancelling headphones so you don’t have to deal with the stupid gossip a couple aisles over just to focus on the task at hand, then should we be required to come in just because others prefer it when their coworkers are there too?

Can’t we just leave it up the choice of the people who are working how they would prefer to work? Or do we have to enforce a skeuomorphic working arrangement on everyone just because our managers like it better?

For the heads-down execution characteristic of a junior role, you’re right, collocation doesn’t matter and focus does.

Past entry level we expect engineers to also be working with their colleagues to determine what to build, when, and how. In an emergency, doing this on Zoom beats not trying at all. That’s about the best I can say for it.

If you really can’t afford to live closer than an hour to your office as a software engineer, you’re woefully underpaid. More likely that is the point in tradeoff-space that you chose.

>but I do think it is up to the employer to decide.

Why? Seriously, many other things aren't, so why should this be? I don't mean WFH should be forced to the employer and to all employees - I mean it should be up to the employee to decide.

The "completely legitimate business setup" is also a huge negative for climate change, car pollution, road congestion, family/personal life time (including time with kids), business and close residential areas rent (since people having to commute try to leave somewhat close and don't have total free choice of where to buy/rent property), and several other things.

Not to mention anachronistic from the same companies that sell "mobility" and "freedom" as achieved with mobile phones and internet services...

The relationship between employer and employee is simple. Employer pays money for some value the employee offers.

Negotiation is clearly in play before the arrangement starts, willing buyer and willing seller and so on.

After the "sale" the employer has most of the power, but the employee has a nuke - they can quit. Usually the employer doesn't want them to quit, so will make unilateral changes to the contract in the employ yes favor from time to time (ie raises etc).

Unfortunately if you are below a certain age, or of a specific skill set, the employer expects you to trigger the nuke anyway, and nothing they do can prevent that, so frankly they don't spend too much energy or money trying to make you stay.

While employees can negotiate after employment has started, they don't have much leverage other than "or I'll leave". And one can only play that card so many times before it's easier just to let you leave.

Employers have legitimate reasons for wanting non-remote workers, but those reasons don't matter to employees. Indeed most employees can't even imagine what those reasons are, or simply discount them as being meaningless. That's OK, there's a reason they are employees and not running businesses.

So to answer your question, employers decide WFH because they have all the power. They figure the upside is worth changing staff over - some will leave, for sure, but there are others out there waiting to fill that slot.

Of course other companies have different priorities and goals and are happy to employ WFH employees, so there's a home for folk who prefer that as well.

Or, if you want the autonomy, and power, (and risk) that being the employer brings you, then by all means start your own business and build a company and culture you'd like to work at.

Spending a majority of my workday on Zoom is miserable. It is better than dying in the ICU. But spending the rest of my working life this way is unacceptable.

I, too, like the separation of the office - a pretty easy commute (less than 15 minutes) and not having to worry about managing the space myself is useful for me to get into "Work Mode" - and I very much appreciate leaving and not reading my emails until I get into work next morning. And this is effectively working remotely - while in a company building I am the only member of my team on site.

This is with a large Santa Clara-based tech company, and they have competitive rates in compensation to FAANG - though that may be misleading. For example I have had a lot of experience working adjacent to people working at Apple, and it's on my list of "Never Work Here" due to the culture, expectations of time, lack of work-life balance, and all while not compensating any more for those asks. Other friends who work for some other companies on that list, however, seem a lot happier. So in my experience lumping them together is a mistake.

Previously, I worked for a British company in the US in an office with some 4 total people on my team, that I found was a near perfect setup - the main company remote and a different timezone effectively meant all communication and meetings happened in the mornings US time, allowing the majority of the day to really get into complex stuff with no interruptions. And a small team allowed for some in-person whiteboard debugging and design discussion and bouncing ideas off people, but with a small team it wasn't a constant distraction.

I found that to be my personal "Perfect Balance" - and I feel I miss that.

Does Apple have an office in Philadelphia?

Wow. Thanks for the insights.

> work at a fast-paced startup and still work on average 10/hours a week less than at Apple.

I am always floored by statements like this. I work as a principal data analyst and everything above 40 hours/week is overtime. While I have overtime included in my contract I still am able to reduce overtime (it is still being tracked to ensure compliance with local workers protection laws) if the project situation allows. On average I do something like 41 hours a week over the last few years. Including high profile client engagement or pitch situations.

I find myself having enough time to also work on my side business and do work for animal protection charities. While still being able to work in the garden and shop to relax.

>"While I have overtime included in my contract I still am able to reduce overtime (it is still being tracked to ensure compliance with local workers protection laws) if the project situation allows."

The people talking about working long hours at Apple are getting paid commensurately. There's a reason why people work at FAANG companies despite the constant complaints.

> The people talking about working long hours at Apple are getting paid commensurately.

Not really. Most divisions in SWE do stack ranking (unofficially). The top quintile (decile in some groups) gets a majority of compensation at review time. The bottom half is lucky to get a cost of living adjustment to their base pay. They likely will get no RSUs and little if any cash bonus.

Despite the disparity in compensation everyone on a team is expected to put in overtime. Anyone that doesn't is guilted over not being a "team player", put on a PIP, outright threatened with firing. If you get put on a PIP there is zero guidance to get off.

So then that makes me wonder, why work there? For the prestige? For having a bad-ass CV entry? I've spent my 11 year career working in start-ups and companies that nobody knows about, I get paid enough to be in top 2% earners in EU, I never work more than 40h a week because that simply isn't legal for an employer to tell me to do unless it explicitly states so in my contract, and none of my contracts have so far stated that, and so I'm puzzled why such a sweat-shop deal could be appealing to people when alternatives exist with a far better work/life balance.

> So then that makes me wonder, why work there?

To be clear: It’s because they’re still being paid very, very well.

The top paying tech companies are kind of a weird bubble because they pay so well on average but they also have a huge upward range beyond that for top performers. It leads to situations where someone can be making $200-300K per year but end up feeling underpaid because someone they know is getting $600K for being a top performer at a top company.

It’s also important to put it in perspective. Relatively few engineers work at these companies in total. The vast majority of engineers work at more mainstream companies where the pay is still good (though maybe not retire early good) and the hours are reasonable. People at the big companies are working long hours to compete for those few coveted top positions and top salaries. But you definitely don’t have to work at those companies.

It's all in the compensation.

FAANG and a few fintech operations pay the big USD. The lower bound on FAANG senior software engineers is apparently above or barely overlaps the upper bound for other massively profitable companies like Intel. So you can't even achieve FAANG comp most places unless you a department director.

I would be wary about assuming too much on "Salary estimation" websites or what people may say on HN. There's a perception that they must be highly paid, and so only the highest paid shout about it. I know a lot of people who work for FAANG in the bay area that have a similar total income to myself (and I work for a company I'd judge to be very similar to Intel).

Also a lot of their income was stock and share bonuses, great if the stock price is constantly going up and they're growing hand over fist, but when things slow down that non-guaranteed income is the first thing to be looked at - if it's not on the contract it's not guaranteed. Sure you might be lucky, but in my experience the "Buy your house in cash of FAANG" for a mid-level engineer gravy train seems to be over if you're not already sitting on the options.

I totally agree that some of the published pay numbers are a little optimistic and include stock and discretionary bonus that are dependent on market performance. However, the companies in that top sphere are still a strata above most of the alternatives.

Plenty of people want to earn that extra renumeration even if it means doing grunt work or giving up on their work-life balance.

how much do you get paid and what city?

This is not accurate. Managers have to make a specific argument to not give a minimum bonus/RSU. Generally, only very low performing people will not receive RSU’s.

Higher level engineers get paid more? And that is suprising or unfair?

The issue is there's not necessarily any fair measurement of "higher level engineer". With stack ranking if you've got five people on a team only one member of the team can be the top quintile getting the majority of compensation. Even if the work of everyone is roughly the same. It's asinine.

There's also no clarity into how to be considered the top of the rankings. The only guidance from managers is to "innovate" and work more.

It's a really demoralizing system unless you're at the top of the stack. It's further demoralizing that the managers are told in no uncertain terms to make the system as opaque as possible.

Maybe not, but it (the post in total) a legitimate counter argument to the previous message.

My experience with apple (never worked there, but worked very closely with them for years) is there's a HUGE difference between teams.

If you're in the fancy new hotness that has VP political support, great.

If you're in a team with a manager who has your back and pushed back on extra work and raises and bonuses for the whole team, great.

But you're one of the lucky ones.

when the overtime is included why not push it to the limit? i once had a contract where deployments were shit shows every other weekend. i signed up for every single one...

on more than a handful of occasions i was able to bill 20 hours over overtime at 2x rate for simply being 'available' meaning my phone was on mute in a deployment support conference call.

they happily paid and i happily pretended to care about their product.

They seem very rooted in the past for lots of ideas, which is ironic given the image and culture they try to project. For example, I've heard at least one story of someone being asked lots of irrelevant CS questions for a front-end role when they interviewed there. He did fine, but he said he felt like the interview somehow felt fifteen years out of date, which really stuck with me.

What CS questions would be irrelevant for front end? I don't quite follow.

Deep questions about data structures and sorting algorithms that are perfectly addressed by the standard library in JS iirc. I understand that virtually anything in CS is or can be relevant, especially for such a competitive role. I don't think one should limit their knowledge wholly to a specific domain, but it seemed like there was so much emphasis put on these kinds of concepts that there was very little time left to put emphasis on things that actually might be relevant in the day to day. Beyond that though, I can't say. That's all I got out of it.

I feel like the binary tree questions may actually be relevant for JS, considering there aren't any the standard lib.

General tree traversal is pretty valid for frontend. Specifically binary tree is not.

It's really not far fetched to imagine needing to do a prefix scan of data held in client-side memory.

I'm sure Apple has a JS lib with a binary tree in it.

I imagine they're complaining about the technical interview. For the record, when I did the technical interview I didn't find it too onerous -- mostly a more advanced sort of FizzBuzz to check you could do some intermediate math and handle basic data structures and logic flow.

My understanding is that at Apple this can vary quite a lot in difficulty or depth depending on what team you're looking at, and who is interviewing you.

Indeed. My last onsite with apple concluded with a couple hours of grilling on how to write performant synchronization primitives on various real architectures. I was not interviewing for the relevant teams.

Yikes! I would sort of wonder if it was a test to see if you know scope. But for two hours?

I know its Apple but I'd definitely be prepared to walk out. In that situation that gives you the freedom to clarify the job description -- if they say it is in the description, I'd save everyone time and say I don't have that knowledge, thank them for their time, and wish them luck on their next n months of searching for their unicorn.

If it isn't, I'd probably go full stick-in-the-mud and explain that I could find the answers to those questions but it would be a waste of everyone's time: I'm an A player and I don't focus on irrelevant things that dilute abilities and ultimately the product (basically throw Steve Jobs at them).

I have a chemical engineering degree from a "Division 2" university and part of a computer science degree from a fairly low-ranked research university.

Your strategy would be an epic failure for me. Granted, nearly any strategy would be.

If the role was to do front-end development for internal tools, that might have not been all that irrelevant.

This is true, Apple is so secretive they try to get people into interviews without telling them the role they're interviewing for. They're so cagey and they expect you to say "yes" because they're Apple. The guy might not even have known what role he was interviewing for! It's a great way to waste everyone's time.

Maybe, that's true. There were more details that led to the impression but it's been too long ago now for me to remember them all.

There were times at Apple that people were given a "no" on the interview because, despite knowing the solution to the problem, had compilation errors in there code. I thought (and still think) that was idiotic.

> Having left, I forgot what it was like to be able to focus on something other than Apple. Incredibly toxic atmosphere on the inside. I work at a fast-paced startup and still work on average 10/hours a week less than at Apple.

Maybe it was because I worked there only during the pandemic, but I never really felt the emotional impact of Apple's toxicity. I could of course tell it was there, and if I actually cared about getting promoted or getting higher pay, I might have felt more stressed.

For example, after pointing out some areas where I thought a proposal could be improved, from that point on I just wasn't ever invited to any more design or strategy meetings. It's like I was just cut out from everything because I had the audacity to criticize something from some senior schmuck with tenure, and I wouldn't grovel and kiss whoever's ass I needed to in order to be "allowed" in those meetings from that point forward.

In hindsight I was glad I torpedoed myself right off the bat after I joined. Not actually ever having to be around any of those people in meatspace probably helped, but it was really easy for me to sit in my office at home and plug away undisturbed on the pet projects that I felt were interesting and worthwhile. What I created actually was helpful, but it was totally designed, written, and delivered in a silo. I collected my salary and stock for a year, added Apple to my resume, and then hopped on to another company with higher comp and a much healthier culture.

Now at this new place, everyone is falling all over themselves to have me in their design and strategy meetings. <shrug> Fare thee well, Apple. I hardly knew ye.

Would love to know how it was like working at Apple? How toxic was toxic?

I don’t think you understand how deep the Apple secrecy/paranoia culture rabbit hole goes.

Another example: Have you ever noticed how comparatively infrequently Apple is even mentioned in FAANG working condition threads?

Source: I am a former Apple employee.

It's likely a throwaway account and I understand the reasoning behind creating one. Apple has a very secretive, almost paranoid, workplace culture. If I were in the parent poster's shoes I'd make one too to avoid blowback.

Most people "in tech" don't even know Hacker News exists. It's a bubble within a bubble.

lol having a HN account isn't a pre-requisite to being in tech

also, isn't their new campus built atop a toxic waste site?

That term could fit most of the Santa Clara Valley if you’re operating on the definition provided by the person you heard that from. I won’t link their name here, since I do not believe it is worthwhile to give them attention.

It's built on the old HP campus, so at worst it's haunted by the souls of dead graphing calculators.

You mean Sunnyvale? Lots of people live and work there already.

It's an empathy building exercise for the Foxconn employees