New book reveals Apple’s ‘soul sucking’ IS&T group

A team at Apple that builds the company’s internal technology apps, servers, etc. is called the Information Systems & Technology (IS&T) group. According to an excerpt from an upcoming book, Always Day One by Alex Kantrowitz, Apple’s IS&T group “operates in a state of tumult,” BuzzFeed News reports.

Alex Kantrowitz, senior technology reporter, BuzzFeed News:

IS&T is made up largely of contractors hired by rival consulting companies, and its dysfunction has led to a rolling state of war. “It’s a huge contractor org that handles a crazy amount of infrastructure for the company,” one ex-employee who worked closely with IS&T told me. “That whole organization is a Game of Thrones nightmare.”

Interviews with multiple former IS&T employees and its internal clients paint a picture of a division in turmoil, where infighting regularly prevents the creation of useful software, and whose contract workers are treated as disposable parts.

“There’s a Cold War going on every single day,” Archana Sabapathy, a former IS&T contractor who did two stints in the division, told me. Sabapathy’s first stint at IS&T lasted more than three years, the second only a day. Inside the division, she said, contracting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, and Accenture are constantly fighting to fill roles and win projects, which are handed out largely on the basis of how cheaply they can staff up to Apple’s needs…

When IS&T’s projects are finally completed, they can cause even more headaches for Apple employees, who are left with a mess to clean up. Multiple people told me their Apple colleagues were forced to rewrite code after IS&T-built products showed up broken.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s IS&T group sounds like a wonderful place to conduct an intervention and perform a total makeover. If you work or worked for IS&T, let us know below how your experience is/was below!