Apple has a team called Information Systems & Technology (IS&T), that builds its internal technology tools, including servers and data infrastructure. The IS&T group, according to an excerpt from an upcoming book shared by BuzzFeed News "operates in a state of tumult."
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Made up largely of contractors hired by rival consulting companies, Apple's IS&T team has been likened to a "Game of Thrones nightmare" with turmoil, infighting, and disagreements that hinder work.
"There's a Cold War going on every single day," Archana Sabapathy, a former IS&T contractor who did two stints in the division, told me. Sabapathy's first stint at IS&T lasted more than three years, the second only a day. Inside the division, she said, contracting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, and Accenture are constantly fighting to fill roles and win projects, which are handed out largely on the basis of how cheaply they can staff up to Apple's needs.
Companies involved in providing contractors for available roles don't care about the work, the talent, or the effort that's put in. People come and go with no notice, and Apple employees have been forced to rewrite code created by IS&T on multiple occasions.
Experiences shared on Quora have said that working on the IS&T team is "worse than sweatshops in India" and a "soul sucking" place to be.
Apple also has unrealistic expectations for the IS&T team, paying consulting companies as much as $150 an hour while contractors make much less, up to $55 per hour, leaving Apple with "lesser contractors" to fill the "same high demands."
The excerpt suggests that Apple should make an effort to fix its "broken" IS&T division as it would be the right thing to do from a moral standpoint and could also help Apple's business.
The full excerpt can be read over on BuzzFeed's website, and it comes from the book "Always Day One" by BuzzFeed writer Alex Kantrowitz. "Always Day One" takes a look at the inner workings of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
Top Rated Comments
I was a contractor for Apple a couple of times, but I had no idea their internal tools were built by contractors as well.
Apple should be investing in itself. To strive for something better than great profit margins.
The more you take a step back and get a birds eye view, the more Apple looks like an organization whose greatest success is organizing various contractors around the world in a way to produce a lot of revenue that benefits a relatively small number of employees, with the ones at the top receiving the lion's share in stock options. Yes, they have good products (although that's been murkier as time has gone on), but it seems like having good products has been secondary for a while to their success and strategy. They care about products, but obviously not enough or it hasn't scaled well as they've grown.
Tim Cook is very good at what he does. I just don't like what he does. Or what he does shouldn't be the aim of Apple. It should be secondary, in an ideal world.
This is how Boeing ****ed up. By relying too much on contractors. Hopefully Apple will course correct
I expect it is similar at Google, Facebook and other large IT corporations.