Full Time Spaceship Employees Only

Recent episodes of Accidental Tech Podcast have brought up Apple’s lack of quality developer documentation. The most recent discussion spawning after the release of a new website, No Overview Available, which serves as “a survey of Apple developer documentation.”

During the multiple discussions it has been suggested that this documentation issue is an easier problem for Apple fix than others since documentation can be produced in parallel, money can buy more writers and Apple has plenty of money.

This is mostly true, but a major factor that is not brought up is Apple’s reluctance to hire remote documentation writers.

I myself was approached for a documentation team job a few years back and the fact I did not want to move out to Cupertino was an immediate strike. It was a shame too since I was probably a prime candidate having both real world development experience as well as teaching experience about the platform.

No matter how well designed the new campus is, I feel like Apple’s reluctance to embrace some kind of remote work culture will be a thread of its inevitable decline. There is a fixed, limited pool of candidates who live or is willing to relocate to the Cupertino area. It gets even more difficult when you consider a technical writer will probably make less (Glassdoor listing) than a developer and yet the cost of living out there is crazy for both professions.

PS: Yes, I know of a few special cases that are allowed to work remotely but they are just that, very special cases.