The Apple Coding Interview

What are people saying about Apple's Interview

PROS

People treat each other with respect. Software Engineers are highly valued here. Work life balance is great. There are a lot of growth opportunities for smart people and it’s easy to get promoted if you do a great job. There is little competition between peers.
Take ownership and deliver.
Decide the tools for your game, have some flexibility there.
Switching teams seems to be easy and supported.

CONS

Long hours, demanding schedule, usually under staffed for the schedule demands
Must create your own work/life balance
Constant reorganization & personnel shuffling impacts productivity
DIY engineering culture, little to no mentoring
It’s a real challenge to stay a motivated engineer in a culture where the majority of new projects are killed off, resulting in constant outflow of engineering talent.

What apple employees say about interviewing

"The hiring manager is looking to see how you process information, how logical you are, how you analyze a problem."

"Share your thought process and how you would solve it. Don’t just jump to the answer—it doesn’t matter. We want to see if people can think on their feet, if they’re all right with being thrown a curve ball, because that’s the kind of fun, innovative atmosphere we want to generate."

Mock Interview with Apple Engineer

What are people saying about Apple's interview?

“The on-site was a full day of about 5-6 technical interviews, with a few behavioral questions here and there. The technical questions related directly to the team's work and were not the typical general CS questions.“

“The on-site consisted of one hour interviews every hour (11-5), and we're all very technical. I was asked to solve various problems (your typical algorithm and data structure subjects), as well as explain the various projects I worked on in my most recent position. All in all, I'd say it was too bad as I had prepared by practicing algorithms (searching, sorting, etc), and brushing up on some objective-c.”

“There is a lot of coding on a laptop with the screen projected and also a lot of white board coding and system design. The questions were not extremely tough but makes you think in terms of DS and Algorithms. The lunch turned out to be a very technical interview in itself but now the entire team is shooting questions at you.”