Comment by ladberg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ladberg | Hacker News Reader

> Apple normally provides bonuses and promotions once or twice per year depending on division, with the extra money paid out in April and October, but the company is shifting entirely to a once-per-year bonus schedule

FWIW my understanding was that it was already once-per-year 99% of the time, with the off-cycle bonus being intended for weird circumstances (starting at an unusual time that left a big gap in between bonuses, retention for employees likely to leave). Someone correct me if I'm wrong though!

EDIT: Clicking through to the Bloomberg article actually provides the context I was lacking:

> The majority of Apple’s divisions had already moved to a once-a-year schedule for bonuses and promotions, including software engineering and services, but staff in operations, corporate retail and other groups had still been on the outgoing biannual plan.

I wasn't aware that non-engineers were on a different schedule, but I wouldn't regard this change as "cost cutting", just consolidating some differences across orgs.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-14/apple-del...

Once per year promotions seems rough. If it is denied for some reason you can’t try again in 1-2 quarters. Although maybe that is a good way to prevent people from creating promotion oriented systems (ask POS).

AIUI, Amazon L7 and up is once per year. Clearly that’s not the answer for promotion-driven-development.

I'm not convinced there is a way to solve promo-driven development. People will do what is individually incentivized.

What is more interesting is if there is a way to align promotions with stuff that's good for the company. The issue isn't that people want to get promoted, it's that they get promoted to do things that are negative for the company!

You can get promoted mid-year at Apple.

> Once per year promotions seems rough.

That seems to have been the standard for every job I've ever had, across disciplines and sectors. I assume this is not the norm in silicon valley?

Most of the other big tech cos have promotion windows twice a year at least.

Doesn’t Apple only really have like… 3 levels? Twice a year feels like overkill.

At the big tech I work at there's a promo window every 3 months.

Most tech companies are quarterly for junior positions and twice a year for senior positions.

I can assure you that it just creates higher-stakes promotion-oriented systems, with everything unfolding as a slow-motion multi-month (or multi-year) narrative.

Even so, you can be promoted mid-cycle in orgs like this. My team opened up a senior eng slot at the 6 month mark and had a team member apply. Counted as an internal job transfer rather than a promotion.

This is about the yearly performance bonus, not the promotion package.

Thanks - we've merged the comments into a thread where the URL is the bloomberg.com article, which is the original report.

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