careerladder.fyi › Career paths › Apple
How people got jobs at Apple
What 79 people did before they joined Apple: where they worked, what they studied, which role they came in through, and how long it took.
79
people in our data got there
78%
had a graduate degree first (of those listing one)
10
typical years since first job
- The most common step right before: from other companies (48%).
- The most common way in was Software engineering (27% joined in that kind of role).
- Of those who list their education, 78% had a graduate degree before arriving and 36% a PhD.
- The typical person arrived about 10 years after their first job.
- The most common earlier employer: Microsoft (10% had worked there).
How Apple compares
- 36% had a PhD, well above the 15% across other Big Tech companies, the highest of the 12 in our data.
- 78% had a graduate degree, well above the 61% across other Big Tech companies, the highest of the 12 in our data.
- People arrived about 2 years later in their careers than at the typical one of the other Big Tech companies (10 vs 8 years since their first job).
Among people who list their education; places with at least 10 such people.
Show as a table
| People listing education | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple (this page) | 50 | 78% |
| 16 | 75% | |
| Meta | 103 | 71% |
| 105 | 69% | |
| NVIDIA | 36 | 67% |
| Amazon | 54 | 63% |
| Adobe | 43 | 58% |
| Microsoft | 97 | 58% |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | 44 | 50% |
| Palantir Technologies | 36 | 50% |
| Salesforce | 28 | 43% |
| Oracle | 30 | 37% |
Show as a table
| Median years | ||
|---|---|---|
| Adobe | 12 yrs | |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | 11 yrs | |
| Salesforce | 11 yrs | |
| NVIDIA | 10 yrs | |
| Apple (this page) | 10 yrs | |
| Meta | 8 yrs | |
| Palantir Technologies | 8 yrs | |
| 7 yrs | ||
| Microsoft | 7 yrs | |
| Oracle | 7 yrs | |
| Amazon | 6 yrs | |
| 6 yrs |
Which role they joined in
Kinds of role with fewer than 5 people are combined into "All other roles".
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Software engineering | 21 | 27% |
| All other roles | 35 | 44% |
| Data science & ML | 13 | 16% |
| Research | 10 | 13% |
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 7 | 9% |
What they did right before
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| From other companies | 38 | 48% |
| From Big Tech | 13 | 16% |
| From banks & Fortune 500 | 10 | 13% |
| Publishing research | 7 | 9% |
| This was their first listed step | 6 | 8% |
| Other | 5 | 6% |
Where they worked before
A person can count under more than one employer.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | 8 | 10% |
| Amazon | 5 | 6% |
| IBM | 5 | 6% |
Education
Among the 50 of 79 people who list their education.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's | 11 | 22% |
| Master's | 19 | 38% |
| MBA | 2 | 4% |
| PhD | 18 | 36% |
How much experience they had
Among the 72 of 79 people with an earlier job listed.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| 1-3 years | 5 | 7% |
| 3-5 years | 9 | 12% |
| 5-8 years | 15 | 21% |
| 8-12 years | 13 | 18% |
| 12+ years | 30 | 42% |
Where would your path lead?
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Apple, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Apple →
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Apple, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Apple →
Related
How these numbers are made. From 3k+ public career histories collected for careerladder.fyi (dated jobs, degrees and publications). The collection was built around particular employers, so people who reached well-known tech, AI and finance employers are over-represented: read shares as "among people in this dataset", not as hiring odds. Names are shown only when at least 5 people are behind them; smaller groups are combined into "Other". No individual profile is shown. Updated November 2026.