Tc:240k I heard Apple treats their contractors shit, thus article just glorifies that. Full timers what do you think of contractors? Did you ever have to work with them ? How was your experience? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-11/apple-black-site-gives-contractors-few-perks-little-security
I have worked at Apple as a contractor, startups and currently full time at a FAANG company so I think I have some valuable insight here. TLDR: Overall would give the experience a thumbs down. Apple sets contractors up for a bad experience, even though individual experiences can vary. More detail I’ll start with the bad. The bad: Contractors are very clearly second class citizens. You are cut out of many meetings, have limited visibility and access. Sometimes things which are available at point are not at another. Sometimes permissions to necessary work documents are restricted access and it takes ages to get them cleared. Contracting + Apple’s culture of secrecy is a nightmare combination. ‘Contracting’ as people intuit it doesn’t really exist (ie short term contracts for a specific project etc.). Most contractors are basically full time employees + micromanagement + bad compensation + worse benefits + abuse. I’ve seen many contractors who have been at Apple for 3+ years and are the solo subject matter expert on the team. But for many their bargaining power is low because they are on a visa + are afraid of getting badmouthed to their company. That brings me to another point. Many contractors come from places like Wipro, Infosys etc (basically Indian contractor mills). I don’t know what it is about these places but the people who become full time at Apple become abusive contractor managers.... of other people just like them! You might think I’m slighting Indians or their culture, let me be clear: I’m not! Many of my best friends at Apple were Indian contractors and Indians who gained their masters in the US. However many of the converted managers (side note contractors are usually managed by other full time engineers... not real engineering managers) are abusive arrogant jerks. Probably because they had to be to crawl their way out and become full time in a shitty division like IS&T. It just sucks... the people who manage you often treat you like the expendable commodity you are, this plus all of the other crappy conditions. Other miscellaneous things: - contractors often cannot sit with their team... they have run down dirty contractor offices - contractors are expected to be available at all times, working remote etc isn’t an option... even though you often can’t even sit with your team and you don’t get the benefits of full time - contractors live in fear of being able to be let go at a moments notice, at will blah blah but it’s far easier to drop a contractor... which is why they are hired The good: It’s not all bad, but the good is really dependent on the people you have around you. Many contractors have had it far worse than myself. I happened to start my gig working under a really crappy manager, however the ‘team’ of other engineers / data scientists I worked with were mostly awesome. They treated me with respect, and became lifelong friends. The more senior engineers were there to mentor me and give me career advice. I can say I left with a lot of good connections on a personal level. The Apple brand (contractor or not) carries a lot of cache. When I left the company I found it exceedingly easy to get interviews with just about any company I wanted, even under full disclosure I was a contractor and not a full time employee. You can also gain a lot of great experience. Honestly this one is up to you + some luck. I was fortunate enough to work on and even lead some initiatives on some higher profile projects (at lest compared to others in my position). This was a great resume booster and really helped me out in architecture / career interviews. In summary: being full time is almost better anywhere. If you go to Apple on a contract make your time there short, get something out of the experience and be Leetcoding every day. Oh yeah almost forgot: TC: 280k 4YOE
I guess those full time engineers don't have the power to covert his/her contractors to FTE right?
I think it really depends on the team (just like any company). Most of my coworkers were at one point contractors that were then converted to full time once we got reqs. I’ve only been here for 2 years, but in that time we’ve converted 2 contractors to full time. The answer above is correct in some regards though - contractors won’t be in most meetings, if the team is in a lockdown area they can’t go in, and the secrecy of the company can make things difficult.
Sad