I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Sep 2012
Interview
Met with manager and a handful of project leads and interviewed for most of the morning and afternoon. The technical questions weren't necessarily hard (what is this made out of? how did we make it? name 5 other ways we can make this, etc.), but I wasn't confident in my answers. I wasn't great at talking through the problems, and I was underprepared and to an extent unprepared for the interview, not only in terms of technical foundation, but also a solid design portfolio that I could present and defend when asked to go into greater detail. Nothing gets passed by these guys, and I have a ton of respect for everyone in the PD groups. I was grilled pretty hard, and it was hard not to take personally, but they were just making sure they're getting the absolute best people. Overall, a tough experience but a lot of great takeaways moving forward.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
General technical questions about manufacturing and materials
The interview went well overall. The interviewer opened with a discussion about a project I'm proud of, then a beam scenario question that covered structural and load analysis, stress and deflection, and material selection — testing my ability to connect first-principles thinking across the full problem space.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Apr 2026
Interview
Interview with hiring manager then virtual onsite. They ask you general mechanical engineering questions as well as questions dependent on type of team and skills they are looking for. Not bad overall just brush up on basic beam deflection, GD&T, Design analysis etc.
They gave me a take home tolerance analysis worksheet. It was essentially a tolerance stack up for one of their products and felt fairly straight forward. Thought I answered it well but ultimately they decided to move forward with other candidates.