Apple Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
Overview |
| |
Salaries |
| |
Reviews |
| |
Interviews |
| |
Photos |
| |
Jobs |
| |
|
Updated May 6, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
|
Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 52 ratings 
“Average” Interview
|
Interview Experience [?] Based on 52 ratings
|
Apple has 226,142 connections on Glassdoor
See Who You Know
| 41–50 of 52 Apple Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Mar 10, 2010 — 1 of 2 people found this helpful
|
2.0
Easy Interview
|
Overall Neutral Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Feb 2010 in Cupertino, CA (took a day)
Contacted by recruiter. Phone interviewed by a hiring manager. Then 1-day on-site interview. Technical questions are ranging from data structure, algorithm, and knowledge of special techniques. The interviewer will challenge your answers by asking you to optimize them. My strategy is to come up with a so-so answer and then discuss possible directions with the interviewer.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Feb 27, 2010 — 4 of 4 people found this helpful
|
3.0
Average Interview
|
Overall Negative Experience
|
Received and Declined Offer
|
Interviewed Jun 2008 in Cupertino, CA (took a day)
I appeared for a college interview with Apple. The technical part of the interview was fine: there were no trick questions. One of the questions was to actually write C code for some string manipulation. The interviewer also asked me if I used Mac OS, and what I thought was annoying about it. We had a good discussion about the technical and user-side limitations of Mac OS X. The technical interview was fine.
The real disaster was the HR interaction. Right after the interview, the HR person gave me an iTunes gift card...for $1. A. Single. Dollar. I thought it was a joke, and I told the person to keep it. I wasn't an iTunes user anyway, and I thought a gift card for a single dollar was borderline insulting. It would have been better not to offer anything. After the interview, I waited for a response. I received a call that my interview had gone well, and they were interested in getting me on-site (Cupertino) for interviews, then I got some conflicting email saying that on-site interviews wouldn't be required. This was for an internship, and most bay-area companies don't bother with onsite interviews for summer internship. In the meanwhile, I had interviewed with Google, and they had offered me a position. I emailed my recruiter at Apple, and got no response back. I accepted the Google offer. A week or two later, I get a frantic call from some other Apple recruiter, saying how they'd love to have me over. Alas, by then it was too late.
I suspect Apple expects candidates, especially college students, to wait for them.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
The callous attitude of the HR folk. Also, by the time they had woken up, I had begun and finished the interview process with another company.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineering at Apple
Posted Nov 15, 2009
|
4.0
Difficult Interview
|
Overall Neutral Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Oct 2009 (took a day)
I was contacted by a recruiter after posting and applying to multiple positions online. The recruiter set up a phone interview with one of the members of the iPhone Applications team. The interview started on time and after introducing each other the manager quickly began to ask technical questions. The initial questions had to do with some of my previous work experience and algorithms and design approaches I used to solve the problems.
The final question (and the one that stumped me) had to do with the implementation of a text autocompletion system. No matter what position you're interviewing with, I would make sure that you have brushed up on some fundamental data structures.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Nov 9, 2009
|
2.0
Easy Interview
|
Overall Positive Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Oct 2009 (took a day)
I talked to a recruiter at a BYU college career fair and left him my resume. When the official recruiter came to town he scheduled an interview through our recruiting office. He had been all over the nation interviewing candidates and was only looking for one position. he asked a lot of personal questions and only a few technical questions, like about the unix terminal. "If you wanted to change permissions to read/write all recursively how would you do it?"
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Nov 9, 2009
|
3.0
Average Interview
|
Overall Neutral Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Sep 2009 (took 2 weeks)
I was interviewed on campus (my school) by an Engineering Manager. He was a hiring manager for the CPU Software team. However, they said they had several openings in different teams and the interview was for all of them. And it indeed was. The questions were very generic, but mostly compiler kind of questions - size of struct, loops, find errors in code,big endian-small endian, etc.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Oct 14, 2009
|
3.0
Average Interview
|
Overall Neutral Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Oct 2009 in Cupertino, CA (took 4 days)
I got a call from the HR seeing my resume online. I applied for compiler developer position and they called me for a position in the LLVM team. I had 2 levels of phone interview and finally didn't get through though. I had first level of interview with a Director who asked questions about my Masters research work and then I had another level with the manager and a developer who asked me general questions about my resume. The interview lasted for 30-40 min.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Sep 16, 2009
|
4.0
Difficult Interview
|
Overall Positive Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Aug 2008 (took 7 months)
I received initial communication by email from a recruiter that a hiring manager would like to set up a time to talk. I had 2 phone interviews, and then flew out for 12 in person interviews (members of the team and management chain). Everything went really well. The people were really nice and it was great talking with them. The logistics were all handled well. I was basically told I had the job. Unfortunately, a few days after I was told there was a hiring freeze. The process dragged on for months. 2 more phone interviews, followed by 2 months wait, and another 2 phone interviews which were the last. Eventually, I was told they would not move forward. Further inquiry explained they were unable to obtain a job requisition.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
View Comments (1)
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Jul 30, 2009
|
4.0
Difficult Interview
|
Overall Positive Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Jun 2009 in Cupertino, CA (took 5 weeks)
A very challenging interview provided by Apple. Before they brought me on-site, I had several conversations with the team over the phone over the course of 3 weeks. Onsite, the interview lasted for 5 straight hours and I spoke with 9 different people. They wanted me to speak to 2 or 3 more people, but those individuals were in meetings. The interview itself was very challenging, all matter of questions were asked including knowledge and experience with Apple products, previous projects worked on, a variety of technical questions, creativity questions, and a personal evaluation of faults and shortcomings. The interview process was very grueling but in the end rewarding; however, I was not offered a position.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted May 29, 2009 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
|
3.0
Average Interview
|
Overall Neutral Experience
|
Interviewed and No Offer
|
Interviewed Feb 2009 in Cupertino, CA (took a day)
Teams of two to three people at a time interviewed me in waves. Technical questions were asked. No brain teaser types of questions. Opinions were asked of various technologies. No one was very prepared for the interview. It seemed like most were bugged to have to do it and just wanted it to be over. Having to work on short deadlines and long hours was a recurring theme.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Apple
Posted Mar 18, 2009 — 6 of 6 people found this helpful
|
3.0
Average Interview
|
Overall Negative Experience
|
Received and Declined Offer
|
Interviewed Dec 2008 in Cupertino, CA (took 1 week)
I interviewed with the hiring manager, then with several team members, two at a time. The final interview was with VPs, one after the other. I was not told beforehand that they would be VPs. Aside from the background check, this is the final step before an offer is authorised.
My potential co-workers all seemed very capable, there was no bottom 5% as far as I could see. I hear that laziness or time pressure is the most likely cause of screw-ups or people not wanting to do things thoroughly, rather than people not having the technical know-how.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
I declined the initial offer because:
offer relied on restricted stock grants to be competitive
the offered pay was lower than expected
there is no structured bonus system, it is project based, have heard stories of lower than expected bonuses for successful projects
they only offer 12 days of vacation a year, vacation days are not negotiable,
A second offer was made but was barely changed. In fact, I considered it worse. It was clear there was no negotiation.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview, a Skills Test and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
RSS Feed for Apple
Interviews
Embed
