Why I left Apple (2019)

All in-depth articles about my Apple career:

• How I ended up at Apple (1999)

• AppleCare (1999-2000)

• Mail team (2000-2004)

• Aperture: Senior QA (2004-2005)

• Eye Candy QA (2005-2011)

• Flipboard interlude (2011-2013)

• Calendar and Contacts (2013-2015)

• SwiftUI (2015-2016)

• Watch Hardware (2016-2017)

• Eye Candy QA (2018-2019)

• Why I left Apple (2019)

I always thought it would be fun to get fired from Apple. I thought it would make a good story! Maybe I could do increasingly outrageous things and eventually get fired.

The truth is less interesting though. I’ve been on leave for awhile and Apple finally said my time was up. So, in the end, I did get terminated (aka fired). But it’s such a boring story. I always wanted to go out either on a high note or a very dramatic note, so I am disappointed.

For most of my career, Apple has been the only organization I’ve been a part of where I fit in completely. I have a team photo from Aperture on my wall and I still get emotional looking at it. There are many other teams I …