New Day Job
I work at Apple now! I’m a software engineer on the prototyping team in the design studio. This is something I’ve been working on for a while. In fact, the hardware archeology posts I made back in May were related to a presentation I gave during the year-long process:
- October, 2019 – Contacted by a recruiter about the role.
- November, 2019 – Met with someone on the team who knew of me from Pixar to learn more about the team.
- January, 2020 – Meet and greet with with the team at the Apple campus.
- March, 2020 – The pandemic hit.
- April, 2020 – Virtual interview with a several members of the team.
- June, 2020 – Gave a presentation over video chat to the larger team and interviewed virtually with more people.
- September, 2020 – Got an offer from Apple.
A couple issues came up during this whole process. One is that it’s a pretty long commute. I initially passed on applying because of that but I kept on hearing great things about the team and the more I heard about the role, the more it felt exactly like what I wanted to do. But the second issue was the whole pandemic. That probably delayed everything by a few months and it was also more challenging to interview virtually than in person. On the plus side, it looks like I won’t have to worry about the commute for a little while.
Looking back, I’m very grateful for my seven (!) years at Google. I learned so very much and got to work on cool projects like object scanning, the Cardboard app, and of course, Tilt Brush. I got to work with incredibly talented people, travel the world, and eat some wonderful free food. I still think it’s a great place to work and would heartily recommend it to anyone interested. But the company has shifted focus in the past year or so and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to do the kind of work that I think the new role at Apple will provide.
