Working for Apple

Two 'Working for Apple' stories December 2013 - March 2015

Want to work for Apple in the US? Here are the five main jobs for which foreigners are hired

If Apple’s recently-revamped jobs site has tempted you to consider a move to the US, data from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification may provide a guide to your chances. Applications for H-1B visas–those allowing overseas workers to accept job offers in the US–reveal that top tech companies like Apple mostly sponsor the visas for five main roles, reports TechCrunch.

By examining the most common professions among H-1B applicants for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, five consistent career paths emerged across each company. Software engineers, systems software engineers, financial analysts, computer systems analysts and marketing managers make up a large part of H-1B visa applications.

The salary data shows that the average salary paid to foreign workers employed in the USA by the five tech companies is highest at Facebook, at $135k, with Apple sitting in the middle of the pack at a little over $120k.

Apple only the 16th best tech company to work for, say employee reviews

Photo: valuewalk.com

Apple dropped to only the 16th best tech company to work for, and 35th overall, in Glassdoor’s annual ranking of the 50 Best Palaces to Work – down from 3rd in tech and 10th overall last year.

Based on over half a million reviews written by employees, Apple took 35th place, with fifteen tech companies ahead of it in the list, with Twitter taking the top tech slot, and LinkedIn and Facebook completing the top three.

Fortune did some sampling of Apple employee reviews to give a sense of why the company didn’t rank more highly, with retail staff particularly critical.

Creative (Apple Store): It’s busy. All. The. Time.
Packaging Engineer: High stress, long hours, too much security.
Genius: Difficult to move up. Interactions with customers can be trying. Understaffed and overworked. Hours can feel long and are inconvenient to a proper work life balance.
Mac Specialist (Apple Store): Hard to internally grow into management. Too touchy-feely at times. Managers pulled in too many directions.
Front End Engineer: Long hours during project launches and work/life balance takes a backseat at some points.
Apple Solutions Consultant: You have no authority to make any real decisions but you are still required to make them.
Senior Network Engineer: People always watching you. There are people that want to put you down. No respect for contractors. Tough work.
Manager: Expect to deal with a lot of ambiguity and shift gears in the dark. Some in-between senior management are a disappointment.

Apple was, however, rated for offering “great pay at a highly admired company,” offering a “diverse set of challenges and products to work on” and having “many opportunities for career growth, technically and managerially.”