Leaving My Apple Engineering Job in 2020
Yesterday was my last day at Apple. I’m quitting my job as a software engineer and moving back to Hampton Roads, VA to spend some time with friends and family.
Why Leave?
It’s been a great 5 years. I can’t say exactly what I got to work on due to the notorious secrecy, but I’ll share some vague highlights. I had the pleasure of: developing a new process for monitoring Apple Watch pairing reliability, building an internal hackathon project that was among the best in Software Engineering, taking a class at Stanford, working at Apple Park for a year, prototyping some of the first machine learning integrations to our CI test infrastructure, attending SciPy in Austin and KDD in London, and teaching a training in Edinburgh, Scotland. I also had the opportunity to work alongside Mike Bland (who, by crazy coincidence, is also from Hampton, VA) on a broad and cross-functional effort to level up Apple’s software quality culture.
I’m grateful for everything I’ve learned and will miss the people and culture at Apple. It’s been a privilege to work for such a legendary company. That said, there are some easy to overlook downsides to working in big tech. At Apple, you can’t put your own apps on the App Store (conflict of interest). You can’t work on any side project that might compete with current or potential future Apple business. You can’t write blogs or publish anything related to your work without special approval. And, you have to live in a fairly boring suburb or commute a long distance. On the other hand, it’s Apple... Totally worth it for awhile, but I decided it was time for change.
What’s Next?
I’ve always wanted to start a company. After much learning and exploration, I finally have a cofounder and an idea to work on––more info to come! I’ve also got a solid part time job lined up. Between that and my savings, I should have a really long runway to try things out. Before then, my girlfriend and I will be doing a cross-country road trip through the southern U.S., so any recommendations for places to visit would be great!
To everyone I’ve worked with at Apple and all my friends in the Bay Area, I’m going to miss you! Perhaps I’ll be back in big tech again soon. In the meantime, I’m going to try to get out of my comfort zone and build. Wish me luck!
