7 ms·

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 meeti

• abledon 5y ago
  > 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?
  • no_wizard 5y ago
    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
  • fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
    Not FAANG, but GitHub explicitly allows employees to work on side-projects while retaining the IP rights, and you get paid Microsoft stock.
    • voidfunc 5y ago
      Whats hilarious is that this is definitely not the case for regular MS employees
      • brianwawok 5y ago
        Which means it will eventually be the law.
      • astrange 5y ago
        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.
        • hirsin 5y ago
          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.
        • voidfunc 5y ago
          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.
          • astrange 5y ago
            I did not. Talk to some MacBU people.
      • outside1234 5y ago
        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.
  • mochomocha 5y ago
    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).
    • ModernMech 5y 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.
      • dijit 5y ago
        Bingo. Not FAANG but it definitely works like that in Ubisoft.
  • shoulderfake 5y ago
  • stbenjam 5y ago
    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.
    • ianai 5y ago
      Is that still true, post-IBM?
      • redsaz 5y ago
        Can confirm this is still true, yes.
    • unmole 5y ago
      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?
      • stbenjam 5y ago
        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 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.
  • lupire 5y ago
    Develop or sell? No one cares unless you want to be a big name or big money.
  • myelin 5y ago
    Google has a thing called "IARC" (https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing#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.
• CamperBob2 5y ago
  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.
  • birdyrooster 5y ago
    I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.
    • neuralspark 5y ago
      It's a reference to Apple's 1984 commercial
    • CamperBob2 5y ago
      They have not only become exactly what they fought against, they've refined it to perfection.
      • birdyrooster 5y ago
        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.
        • CamperBob2 5y ago
          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.
          • birdyrooster 5y ago
            Ooooo yes that makes sense
• driverdan 5y ago
  Put your work hours in your calendar and auto decline everything outside those hours. Refuse that nonsense.
  • roflulz 5y ago
    thats how you get PIPed
    • driverdan 5y ago
      If you work for a company that toxic you should find a new job.
    • mission_failed 5y ago
      Join a union
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • RandomBK 5y ago
      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.
    • amerkhalid 5y ago
      I freely decline meetings too. Usually, add a note saying it is family time or unreasonable time for a meeting. Never been a problem.
    • crossroadsguy 5y ago
      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.
• VBprogrammer 5y ago
  > 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.
  • KyeRussell 5y ago
    This is unhelpful. Nobody gets total control of their time in employment, and some people get a lot less control than others.
    • horsawlarway 5y ago
      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.
      • crossroadsguy 5y ago
        > 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.
        • saagarjha 5y ago
          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.)
• thawaya3113 5y ago
  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.
• vba616 5y ago
  >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.
• jacobmischka 5y ago
  > 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.