Sunday marked (as the calendar turns) ten years of working at Apple for me. I guess yesterday – Monday – was slightly more relevant, since if course I didn’t start work on a Sunday (although I did go in the previous Friday to get some info from my manager, since I spent my first week in a training class). Yesterday was 522 weeks from that starting date.
But who’s counting?
I’ve spent most of that time working on the Xcode developer tools. Not only is 10 years a long time to work at a single company in Silicon Valley, but nearly-8-years is a long time to be in more-or-less the same role at that company. Of course, every year it seems like I’m working on something new and different, using new technology, so there’s a lot of variety within my job. There’s so much going on here that even if I switched teams every couple of years there’s still more neat stuff to work with and work on than anyone could fit into a lifetime. (Contrast with my previous company, where after 4 years I felt like I’d basically done everything there was to do, on a technical level.)
(Of course, I “celebrated” my anniversary by spending the whole day investigating a heisenbug, but that’s the way it goes sometimes!)
Although the job has its frustrations, there’s no substitute for working with smart people on a project that matters, even if it’s not the most visible or glamorous project around. And I know my work is appreciated, which helps a lot too.
It’s been an exciting decade for Apple, too; the company was just starting its upswing when I joined the company, about a year after the first iMac was introduced. It’s been fun to have been there through all of that.
When I told one of my closest friends at my old company that I was going to interview with Apple, she said, “Oh, you are so out of here.” Ten years later, I’m glad I got the offer, and I’m glad to have taken the job. And I’m glad to have stuck around this long. I hope to stick around a good while longer.
Y’know, I really wish I got to work in XCode instead of Visual Studio.
Among other things, then I’d know whom to harrass when things went wrong! 😀
I’m glad you came out to work for Apple 10 years ago… 🙂
And you WERE so out of there. I’m so glad that you’ve been so happy at that job.
(Is it still illegal for anyone but SJ to wear black turtlenecks?)
Sunday was my 15 year anniversary, which is very scary in a lot of ways. I spent it writing a memo and debugging a heisenbug as well.