Apple Offers Large Bonuses to Employees to Prevent Departures

Apple is reportedly giving large bonuses to engineers working on iPhone projects as an effort to retain talent and prevent recruitment by other companies. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has approved out-of-cycle bonuses for several members of the iPhone product design team, meaning these are surprise bonuses outside the regular bonus schedule typically received by employees. The value is not insignificant, with bonuses ranging from $200,000 to $400,000, or approximately Rp 3.3 billion to Rp 6.7 billion when calculated for the entire period. However, these bonuses are not given in direct cash form; Apple provides them as shares that will vest gradually over a four-year period. Under this scheme, employees must remain with Apple for four years to receive the full bonus value; if they leave earlier, part of the bonus may be forfeited. In some cases, competing companies even offer far greater compensation, with reports of Apple engineers being offered packages up to $1 million per year in shares to switch jobs. This phenomenon raises concerns about the departure of key talent from the Cupertino, California-based company to others. One example is the departure of Tang Tan, former Apple product design VP, who now serves as head of hardware at OpenAI. Additionally, several Apple engineers have reportedly been recruited by other companies in recent years, such as Abidur Chowdhury, the industrial designer behind the iPhone Air, who left to become design lead at AI startup Hawk AI. The wave of Apple employees moving to AI companies has become increasingly evident in recent times. Throughout 2025, dozens of Apple engineers and designers reportedly left the company to join OpenAI or Meta. Not only to OpenAI, but several Apple talents have also landed at Meta, with some names mentioned including: This movement highlights the intense competition for talent in the AI and hardware industries. Nevertheless, employee rotation is not a new phenomenon in Silicon Valley, with many viewing inter-company moves in the technology sector as normal. Apple itself took similar action in 2021 by offering bonuses of around $180,000 to retain employees, though the results were not entirely effective. On the other hand, competing companies can still offer higher compensation, so Apple’s bonuses may not be sufficient to retain all talent, as compiled by KompasTekno from 9to5Mac and Apple Insider.