What is an internship at Apple like?

You just landed your dream job, but you can’t tell your friends, post a few words on your Facebook page, or detail your achievements on your resume. Can you imagine what this feels like? This is what Apple interns are like. A former Apple intern who calls himself Brad said: "They want to release a product that makes everyone happy but no one has heard of it before. You can't tell anyone about your work, not even Tell people outside of your family what you do for a living."

Apple's culture is known for its overemphasis on secrecy and unusual employee loyalty, unlike most other companies in Silicon Valley. In order to get more information, we interviewed Brad, and here’s what we learned:

Getting the job

Brad said that interviews at Apple are different from those at Google ( Weibo) and Facebook interviews are very different. Apple will interview intern candidates for a specific position, and the interview will be personally conducted by the manager of the team where the position is held. Brad himself had participated in the Facebook intern interview, and collected some information from friends who had participated in the Google intern interview. According to Blade, the companies do many things differently. Google and Facebook first conduct comprehensive interviews with intern candidates, and then assign interns to specific teams and positions after being hired.

Brad did not disclose the specific questions he encountered when he was interviewed as an intern at Apple, but he said that he spent an hour or two introducing the interviewer to his previous work.

He said: "The interview was a very simple interview."

When he heard that he was hired by Apple, he immediately accepted the job.

He said: "I was so happy. I told them at that time that I was willing to accept this job no matter what the salary Apple offered me."

Generous The remuneration

Apple’s remuneration to interns is really generous. According to Brad, Apple interns earn $38 an hour, which is consistent with salary data published by career website Glassdoor. Brad said that based on this calculation, Apple interns can get a salary of $6,700 a month.

Brad also said that if interns work more than 40 hours a week, they can also receive overtime pay. The standard for overtime pay is 1.5 times the regular wage; if the working hours exceed 60 hours in a week, interns can receive overtime pay that is twice the normal hourly wage.

This provides interns with the opportunity to save money because they do not have to spend money on accommodation. According to Brad, as long as you don't mind sharing with other interns, you can live in one of Apple's free apartments in the Bay Area for interns.

In fact, this is also one of the best memories of Apple intern Maxime Britto’s internship career. He served as an intern on the Safari team in 2008.

Brito said: "The best thing about accommodation is that you are not alone. You will share an apartment with three other interns, who come from all over the world. , so this is a good opportunity to learn and accept a foreign culture.”

If you don’t want to live with other interns, Apple will provide you with a monthly accommodation subsidy of US$1,000. If you move to the Bay Area specifically to work for Apple, the company will provide you with a relocation allowance of about $3,300.

Brad said: "They recruit interns from all over the world, and they want to solve the interns' worries."

Apple has been working hard to make it easy for people around the world to It's easy to come to work at Apple. Brito said Apple helped him a lot with paperwork when he moved from France to the United States.

He also pointed out that Apple employees were very understanding and understood that English was not his first language. He said: "Whether it is at work or during breaks, other people are very enthusiastic to help me."

Culture of secrecy

Brad said that Apple's goal is “The unexpected and the fun are constant,” so it was key to keep the project as secretive as possible.

Apple also ensures that employees from different departments cannot find out what others are doing. Brad said: "Everything is locked down. Even taking pictures on the campus is not allowed. It's crazy."

This is Apple's first time for those interns to enter the company. The idea that was drilled into them as early as the first day was what Brad calls "confidentiality training." As it turns out, it's not just about avoiding leaks, but also an art of management.

Sometimes, Apple employees even work on a product without knowing what it is. Brad said he once talked to an employee who was working on the first iPad in 2010. The employee said he had been developing a 9.7-inch display for a year or two, and he didn't know what that product was for.

Brad said: "They don't know whether the display is for a large-screen mobile phone or a small laptop. They can't figure out which display until Jobs stands in front of the public to announce a new product. What is the use of the product? When Jobs showed the world the iPad, they realized that it was something they had been developing for the past year or two in Apple's iPod product design in 2008. Nate Sharpe, an engineer who works as an intern at the company, said confidentiality is one of the best features of the job. He wrote in a post on Quora: "Be involved in the product development process before the product is released. It’s a really cool thing, you can see details of previous products and even some that have never been released on the market. ”

Meet with executives

Apple provides interns with the opportunity to meet with company executives. The company will have an executive do this for the interns every few weeks. A speech, company CEO Tim Cook (Tim Cook) and chief designer Jony Ivy (Jony Ivy) were no exception

When Brad was an intern at Apple, he. Attended a panel discussion with the then vice president of camera technology. Brad did not identify the executive, but John Kerr wrote on his LinkedIn profile. Look, he is Apple's vice president in charge of camera technology projects for many products such as iPhone, iPad and Mac.

These seminars usually have a clear theme, such as introducing the business unit where the speaker works. , how the speaker rose to the position of vice president step by step, etc., and then the speaker will answer questions from the interns.

They also revealed some interesting facts about Apple products and their production materials. While listening to a lecture by a camera technology executive, Brad learned about some of the difficulties encountered in the production process of the iPhone 6 camera.

An intern pointed out at the time: When Apple was developing the iPhone 6 camera, the entire process was complicated. What was the decision-making process like? There were some skirmishes between the camera team and the design team led by Ivey, Blade said: "It was like a war. Tug of war. But they finally decided to make the camera stick out a little bit. "

Brad said Ivey didn't want the camera to stick out because he thought it would ruin the overall aesthetic.

Brad said: "They only had two options, either. Either make the phone thicker or switch to a camera with poorer performance. "

Brad said that he also heard from the vice president of operations what it was like to manage Apple's huge iPhone production process.

Brad said: "Getting off the assembly line Some iPhones do not perform perfectly and cannot be sold. "

Many people don't want to find other jobs at all

Brad said that in addition to emphasizing confidentiality, Apple is also different from other technology companies in Silicon Valley in other aspects. Different.

In other companies in Silicon Valley, such as Google and Facebook, employees may be poached by other companies after working for a few years or voluntarily resign and start their own companies, but Apple employees are extremely loyal to the company. , usually working at Apple for 25 to 35 years.

Sharp also pointed out that if the intern can achieve some big results during the study period, he may be successful after the internship expires. He became a regular employee of Apple.

He said: "This is crazy. I have never seen anything like this in other companies. They had face-to-face communication with Jobs. They have extraordinary loyalty. Many people don't want to do it at all." Looking for another job, even to the point of turning a deaf ear to the situation.

Brad said that this unusual loyalty is useful, even if Apple’s subsidies are good. Relatively low-income employees also benefited greatly, he said: "You will see employees driving sports cars to work, and they are just ordinary engineers. The managers are very approachable and have absolutely no sense of superiority. So you can understand why they don't want to go to other companies. ”