Pay is much lower than what I would be earning otherwise. Benefits are slim.
Full-time Apple employees treat vendors as if they were salaried staff. They expect you to be responsive at all hours and work late to meet goals, yet overtime is explicitly frowned upon.
The problems created by this conflict are easy to predict.
I'm expected to be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We also have CRs almost weekly where I'm needed at night. I'm working a minimum of 50 hours a week, sometimes much more. However, if I try to report working 8.5 hours in a day, I need to get special permission from my manager. If I take a day off during the week but work late all other days, I get nothing for the extra hours.
These are dark patterns that encourage exploitation and wage theft.
Most of the team I'm on is in India. This means that to be at timezone handoffs, I need to be available early in the morning and late at night. I often work 9-5 during the day, then log back in at 10 p.m. for an hour or more. While that's 8 + 1 = 9 hours of work, it doesn't feel that way. To my brain, it feels like 12 hours.
It feels like I've been on call for two years straight.
Oh, and they also expect you to commute to Apple three times a week. As a vendor, I'm not allowed in the same building as Apple employees. I commute 1.5 hours to a special building where none of my team works, just to sit on video calls. But I don't have it the worst—some colleagues in Texas drive 2-4 hours three times a week and stay in Airbnbs during those days. This is what happens when you're not paid enough to live in the area where you're expected to work.
If I could rate work-life balance zero stars, I would.
There is no such thing as "contract-to-hire" at Apple. If they tell you that, they are misinformed or lying. Apple policy doesn't allow it. Sure, you can still get hired, but there is no guarantee, and you will certainly get nothing in writing. The best you can hope for is to be considered higher in the pool of applicants because you’re already doing the job.
The root of the issue isn't INSPYR. Apple alone is to blame for creating this two-tiered system—just so one of the most valuable companies on earth can save a few bucks.
