I was recently referred to a team at Apple. The team was working on a greenfield project that was a very strong fit for my experience. I figured it wouldn't hurt to interview and see how it plays out. After 2 years working long hours at a startup (total YOE 7) and some life changes, I was feeling ready for a new challenge. The interviews went really well (2 standard LC medium + 4 behavioral rounds). Within 2 days, I heard back from recruiter. She mentioned that I had "very strong" interview performance and they want to move forward.She was hoping to find my comp expectations (Ugh! Yellow flag). I played it cool and asked her to make the best offer based on my experience and interview performance. I heard back the next day itself. Apparently, they were willing to consider me for ICT4 and shared some TC ranges. The range was extremely wide, going from 250K - 320K. I asked her if they would consider increasing the offer if I shared numbers from competing offers. She explicitly said - "Yes, we do it all the time; but only with a screenshot of the offer letter" (Another yellow flag). A few days later, I received an offer from Stripe (~490K). I shared these numbers with the Apple recruiter and mentioned that I am uncomfortable sharing offer letters willy-nilly. However, she insisted on an offer letter screenshot. I went ahead and shared this as well, after blanking out my name and that of the team/org. This is where things got interesting. They reached out with a verbal offer "that had Director-level approval". They were willing to beat Stripe and ready to offer ~500K (~450K annual $$ + ~50K sign-on bonus). At this point, I'm doing my mental happy dance and imagining a 500K TC life. I let her know that I'd be willing to sign the offer asap and also willing to let the offer elapse. She asked for ~1 week to get the offer done. After 4 days, with my Stripe offer expiry fast approaching, I sent a check-in message asking if things were on track with the offer. I received a somewhat worrying message "we have received push back from Finance". We quickly hopped on a call and she shared the new offer. From 500K, it was down to ~415K. When I asked why, I received a very interesting response. "Well, if we paid you that much you would become the highest paid ICT4 in the org. The last time we did that, it was only because the candidate made MORE outside and took a paycut. Oh, btw, if it was upto the director, you'd actually receive 500K. But finance just wouldnt approve. Sorry!" (RIP meritocracy! And the director clearly lacks influence). I was pretty disappointed and verbally declined the offer. The 🤡 behavior doesn't stop there. The next day I received an email from the director asking me for time to hop on a call. I also heard from the recruiter setting up time with the org's VP for a quick chat to "share background about my candidacy". I figured I'd provide some constructive feedback to these execs to maybe save future candidates from the pain. I canceled couple of my meetings and waited for the apple folks to call. Nothing. Nada. No calls came. So many things went wrong here : - Recruiters insisting on screenshots of offer letter (despite candidate sharing concerns) - Offer numbers going up and down like BTC stock chart (sometimes without any proactive communication) - No regard for expiration dates of a candidate's other offers - The whole "Oh! You did great and we want you but we can't make you our highest paid ICT4 unless you make more outside already". Fuck that! - (Assuming recruiter wasn't lying) Directors getting overridden by internal finance teams on offers - Sr. folks setting up meetings and not showing up. No respect for candidate's time. I personally think I dodged a bullet here. The Stripe hiring experience has been exactly the opposite right from the start. They really try to make you feel like they care. - Starting the conversation with offers that are close to top of market range. - No mention of numbers until they were in real offer letter. - Within a day of receiving the offer, I received email/text from folks 4 levels up the reporting chain offering their time to answer any Qs that would help me decide. I spent 30 mins chatting with each one of them to better understand the team charter and future plans. IMO the Apple recruiters are treating candidates like 💩 (loads of stories on blind about verbal offer fuckups) and can't keep getting away with it. TC: 490K YOE: 7 (Disclaimer : I don't work at Amazon anymore. Posting from my old Blind account. My startup is small enough that I'm not comfortable using that account) #apple #stripe #recruiting #offers
Congratulations for stripe offer. You got what you deserve! Good for you
Thanks!
Congrats!! What level at stripe pays 490k ? And is this in Seattle or Bay? I had an Apple recruiter ghost me as well after my phone screen right after he said I had a very positive feedback.
Check levels.fyi for Stripe SF. This is close to top of range for L3 offers here.
Dodged a bullet! Congrats on the Stripe position!
Stripe is a bad ass company… you ended up at the right place.
Yay
Glad to have you onboard OP. I had a similar awful experience with Apple with made my already-very-pleasant experience with Stripe even more pleasant
Did Stripe eventually ask you to provide a number for your TC expectations? Or did they give you an offer without you saying a number first?
Stripe provides an offer based on level and interview feedback without BS shenanigans (ie asking for other offers, proof, etc)
I was never asked for any numbers.
Apple has some of the worst recruiters. Personally experienced high handedness from their recruiter, so much so that I would never work there.. also experienced no-show by a director who was supposed to call and talk/sell the role.
@op, Exactly the same experience. Looks like it is their playbook. They said you will be the highest paid, we will make you ic5 which got approved and then shot down by some high in the tech, comp numbers approved by the hiring team, but not by finance, screenshots of offer letter.2 level above skip wants to talk to you etc.
Wow! That’s so similar..actually sounds like a “how to fuck with candidates” playbook.
Tips to secure half a mil tc at 7 YOE?
My biased “do what I did” tip - join a FAANG for few years for resume bump + best practices that make these big tech companies successful. Then go work at a much smaller company for the technical breadth and the opportunities to actually build systems and see them fail - Learn from that - repeat. I did more real engineering work in 1 year at a startup than 4 years at Amazon.