As has been my usual experience when I hear anything from Apple, around 2 months after applying I heard from a recruiter. That response time is very disappointing especially since Apple has scaled back in posting roles on LinkedIn. The recruiters seem to approach contacting candidates and following up as if everyone has all the time in the world and applying for jobs is a fun activity. And these are people who stay in the same role for years and decades. I had a recruiter that I had spoken with before and even about a year prior when he ghosted me, and he thought nothing of it. He remembered me, but didn't bristle at his poor communications and lack of response to follow ups. Even during the interview process, he didn't respond to my follow up emails and forgot to apply my accommodation requests despite Apple being an "inclusive" company. The was a SQL exercise in Jupyter that was the easiest I have ever done and I have interviewed with all of FAANG, Uber, Airbnb, Disney, and Microsoft. One of the interviewers acknowledged that GenAi could help with coding, so maybe that's why it was so easy. The python questions were also in leetcode format that is easier that free writing script outside of a function, so that made me confused because I was expecting something more challenging and not a copy paste from the internet. Thankfully there were 2 people at every interview and I think that was to mitigate bias. Most of the interviewers were thoughtful and competent. For the case study I unfortunately got someone with a boring linear progression. She was a PM, so a stakeholder and asked me if I understood the role when my answer to the previous question addressed the role and the broader context - as any true leader is able to do. I explained the role very clearly to her and that shut her up. The other person was championing me, but then the PM became more skeptical when I shared international experience that was obviously relevant to a global role, but not to her who had none and did the "get an MBA and then become a PM standard path". Good for her, but I expected more from Apple and was appalled at the narrow-mindedness and overwhelming need for them to hire people exactly like them, which explains why the company corporate office is only as diverse as the homogenous color of its walls. I also saw that many who got into this role were former contractors, so it became clear that the team wasn't really interested in hiring anyone outside of that path or with experiences that they couldn't personally relate to or that they deemed to much for this role, just because they lowered their own standards.