Apple Pays Its Engineers $180,000 Bonuses to Stop Them From Joining Meta

Meta has reportedly poached about 100 engineers from Apple.

Apple is giving its top engineers in the hardware as well as software divisions out-of-cycle bonuses in a bid to stop them from jumping ship to Meta. These bonuses are largely in the form of restricted stock units valued in the range of $50,000 to $180,000, Bloomberg reported. 

Earlier in October, we reported that Meta, then Facebook, was planning to hire 10,000 engineers to build Zuckerberg's version of the metaverse. In the little time that has passed since the company rebranded itself and even opened up its Horizon Worlds for users. But what is not in the public domain is that Meta has poached about 100 engineers from Apple during the period, according to Bloomberg's report.

Apple now wants to put an end to this by offering its top talent significant stock options that lock them in with the company for years. These options that are being offered selectively to engineers in silicon design, hardware, software, and even operations groups are atypical and untimely, Bloomberg reported. 

According to a previous Bloomberg report, over the next few years, Apple and Meta are likely to face off in a range of products such as mixed-reality headsets, smartwatches as well as home devices. While Apple has been a market leader in the smartwatch category, Meta is looking to make its way into the wearables segment. For the time being, virtual and augmented reality headsets and home devices are still in their infancy and are potential markets for both companies to tap into as we enter an age of internet-connected devices. 

As Meta is looking to foray into the devices segment, it would like to replicate Apple's success. The Cupertino-based company is also looking for new avenues beyond its signature devices such as its autonomous car that has seen delays, and it does not want to let go of its top talent that easily. Apart from Meta's higher salaries, Apple's own insistence that its engineers work from the office for four or even five days in a week could also be a reason why some have left, Bloomberg reported, while stating that Meta's work policies are more lenient.  

The stock options have been given to up to 20 percent of the engineers and could further increase in value as Apple's market cap reaches $3 trillion, Bloomberg reported. Apple has now scrapped its return to office deadline while also offering $1,000 bonuses to enable their employees to procure home equipment, said the report. 

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/apple-pays-its-engineers-180000-bonuses-to-stop-them-from-joining-meta