When I visited the work environment seemed awesome. It appeared to be a really great company to work for. I don't know specifics about hous or salary but the people we were talking with had families and seemed to live quite comfortably and have enough time to spend with the kids. One of the guys we talked to was trained in architecture and worked in architecture before moving there.

P.S. We visited the Palo Alto and SF offices.

person, you'll probably have better luck at core77. you might also indicate what office you are asking about. with larger firms like this, the office culture can vary wildly from office to office.

It could also be worth looking at the IDEO feature that was on 60 minutes a while back. Although it may have been slightly propaganda-ish, as pretty much everyone comes away from seeing it with the thought that it would be the most amazing place in the world to work.

you also have to specify the office that you want to work with... each is a bit different than the other not to mention which department you are working for. i assume since your here that your interested in the more design oriented departments but you should just take notice that each are different than the other. call them up, they were very willing to talk when I first got interested

somewhere in the archinect archives is a discussion of a piece in metropolis about their urban planning/branding activities.

here: http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=46276_0_42_0_C