After Apple’s live broadcast of the WWDC opening keynote on Monday, talks about the latest updates have been saturating blogs, social media streams and every proverbial office water cooler.
When Apple speaks, the world pays attention.
Meanwhile, the teams behind-the-scenes that design and build the latest software updates can revel in the fruits of their hard work. Finally, the world can experience their latest innovation—right down to the details of the new software's flatter, translucent design.
Apple’s status as the world’s most innovative tech company in the world makes working at Apple many designers’ dream jobs.
For Price, this one was one of the core reasons why he eventually quits.
For many other Apple professionals, working nights, weekends or even through vacation time is just a byproduct of being able to do what you love…all the time.
Mark Kawano, former senior designer at Apple and current founder of Storehouse, recently told Fast Co. Design that his colleagues who thrived at Apple welcomed the inflexible hours. They were “just really were dedicated to the customer and the product,” he says. “They were willing to give up their weekends and vacation time. And a lot of the people who complained that it wasn’t fair . . . they didn’t see the value of giving all that up versus trying to create the best product for the customer and then sacrificing everything personally to get there.”
Most companies allocate a designated amount of time and resources to perfecting product design. At Apple…from engineers to executives…everyone thinks about UX and design.
The whole organization as a whole is “structured to appreciate and support design. Everybody there is thinking about UX and design, not just the designers. And that’s what makes everything about the product so much better . . . much more than any individual designer or design team,” Kawano says.
So, in order to succeed at Apple, be ready to highlight your ideas and skills in supporting sophisticated, revolutionary design. “At Apple, it’s expected that experience is really important,” Kawano adds.
Even the marketing specialists dip their feet in the coveted design pool. For instance, the Next Web reports that Jony Ive, who now heads usability across hardware and software, reportedly brought in the Apple marketing team to contribute to the last iteration of iOS7.
“[Ive] brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the ‘interiors,' with those palettes as a guide,” according to the Next Web.
For Price, this was pretty inconvenient: “On boarding was super bumpy, and they had so many passwords, accounts, and logins that it took nearly a month just for me to get on the server,” Price says in his blog post.
Plus, with so many apps, teams and executives, collaboration sessions are rampant at Apple (re: No. 1).
Kawano says that this culture of gathering together, sharing and being aware of what everyone’s working on is essentially the key to their world-class attention to detail.
“People are constantly experimenting with these little items, and because the teams all kind of know what other people have done,” Kawano says.
[Editor's note: Check out this great post by Ken Segall on "What I Learned about Great Meetings from Steve Jobs"].
So, if you want to kill it at Apple…proving that you can manage your time enough to make time for creativity and collaboration is key.
Top image source: Apple Press Kit
Thousands of full-time and remote jobs in every industry. Search jobs.
We'll find you the right candidate, fast. Get started.
Our recruiters connect people with great opportunities and help our clients build amazing teams. Learn more.
