Status: BS in Computer Science, 2 years of professional experience
Position: ICT3 at Apple
Location: Cupertino, CA
Date: Nov 12, 2020
Disclaimer: Because I signed an NDA I won't be giving the exact questions I got on the interview. I will say, however, that all the questions I got during the whole process are here on Leetcode, without the Premium account.
LeetCode Stats
Easy: 71, Medium: 97, Hard: 32
Finding the opportunity
I was reached out by a recruiter on LinkedIn. She explained Apple was looking for people just out of college or with less than 3 years of experience. I immediately accepted and she moved me straight into a "superday" of interviews.
I was quite surprised there wasn't any Online Assessment or Phone Interview before. The recruiter explained that it was a "pilot program" they were running were they do 7-8 interviews back to back. Then if the comittee agrees to hire you, the process continues to team matching and you might get one or more offers if you are a match for multiple teams. I then setup my interviews for the same day (big mistake).
Interview day
My day was split in 4 interviews in the morning, a break, and 3 more interviews in the afternoon. It pretty much took all my work hours for that day.
All the interviews had behavioral questions. These questions have always been rather simple to me, as I either know what the recruiter wants to hear, or I have a concrete "good" example to his question. Whatever the case, try to keep your answers concise but without loosing the context.
All the interviewers had at least 6 years with Apple, some had 20+. Some interviewers weren't technically savvy, they were Product Owners or Managers and these rounds were completely behavioral.
I had in my 7 interviews:
- 1 System Design round
- The question was very open ended. It involved the architecure design of mobile components as well as the back-end supporting structure. I covered topics like load balancers, memory of wearable devices, log rotation, different network protocols like Bluetooth, NFC, HTTPS and their advantages/disadvantages, assymetric encryption etc...
- 2 Resume based rounds (2 interviews with questions around the projects and work experiences I listed on my resume)
- 2 Behavioral rounds
- 2 Coding rounds:
- The questions were Easy-Medium from Leetcode. Some of the questions was really basic Java stuff, like Sophomore year College type of question.
At the end of the day I was quite happy. The interviewers were probably the best I've ever had (after interviewing with Microsoft and Amazon). They definitely make the interview look more like a conversation were you laugh and feel quite at ease.
After that day, I was still expecting another round of interviews. To me those interviews felt like the first filter that anybody can pass. To my surprise, another recruiter reached to me about a week later saying that I passed the interviews, hence they wanted to extend me an offer. He mentioned the organization/team I would most likely be placed under, and if I wanted they could try to match me with another team. I agreed with their initial matching decision and we went into the "negotiating round".
Negotiating the offer
At the time I was also interviewing with Microsoft, and was waiting for an offer on their side. I asked my recruiter for some time until I received the Microsoft offer and he agreed. After recieving the Microsoft offer about a week later after the Apple offer, the Apple's recruiter agreed to a 20k sign on bonus, which apparently Apple no longer does in 2020.
At the end I was happy with my final numbers (which you can find in the Compensation section) and took the Apple offer.
Takeaways
Apple's interviews are not that hard and I would recommend interviewing with them after you had interviews with other companies. The reason I say this is because their interview process is quite pleasant, and if you interview with them first and end up rejected, most likely you will get rejected in another interview with another company as well since it will be harder and more nerve wracking than Apple. However, Apple does offer competitive salaries and are willing to go above and beyond for the right candidate. They give stock away like its candy and can definitely afford whatever you throw at them, if you have the right argument for it.
If you get an offer and are trying to improve those numbers, know that the recruiter won't do much for you just for the sake of "pleasing your desires". It's best when you get a certification in the middle of the interview process, or another offer alltogether. That is "actual data" that they can use as an argument to raise your offer.