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Apple Interview Experiences & Questions

22 real Apple interviews shared by candidates: every round, the questions they were asked, how they answered, and whether they got the offer. Latest: Jul 2026.

What to expect at Apple

Based on 22 real interviews

25%Got an offer
3.1/5Difficulty
3Typical rounds
4 weeksStart to finish

By role

The Apple interview process

Most common round types: Behavioral (9), Coding (7), System Design (7), Project Discussion (5), Technical (5), Cross-Functional (4).

Real Apple interview questions

  1. Can you walk me through your background and the projects you've worked on? Behavioral · Phone screen · answer included
  2. Design an on-device video super resolution model. Other · Final / onsite round
  3. Given a JSON file of records, write a program that consumes it and returns the filtered results based on the requirement. Coding · Technical round · answer included
  4. How would you use AI to improve the testing coverage and reliability of a service? System Design · Final / onsite round · answer included
  5. How would you build a new product or feature for a hypothetical user need? Product Design · Phone screen · answer included
  6. Walk me through the take-home you submitted and explain your design decisions. Project Discussion · Technical round · answer included
  7. Walk me through the scope of your current role. Machine Learning · Final / onsite round · answer included
  8. Tell me about a conflict you resolved. People Management · Final / onsite round · answer included
  9. Here is a large Python file with three bugs. Find where the bugs are coming from and fix them. Debugging · Final / onsite round · answer included
  10. How would you work with cost management or finance to manage host cost effectively for a large observability system? Cross-Functional · Final / onsite round · answer included
  11. How would you go about scoping improvements to the quality of a machine learning model? Program Sense · Phone screen · answer included
  12. Tell me about a product you built that used AI or large language models at scale to solve a customer problem. Technical · Technical round · answer included
  13. Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a teammate. Behavioral · Final / onsite round · answer included
  14. probabilistic questions and code it up Other · Final / onsite round
  15. Build a Go implementation to manage requests within a certain time span. Coding · Final / onsite round · answer included
  16. We are replacing an old metrics storage system with scaling issues. How would you migrate the data without interrupting live traffic or losing any internal data? System Design · Technical round · answer included
  17. How would you build X for Y in a hypothetical product scenario? Product Design · Final / onsite round · answer included
  18. Solve this Python palindrome-style coding question. Project Discussion · Technical round · answer included
  19. How do you define quality in an ML context? Machine Learning · Final / onsite round · answer included
  20. How do you give hard feedback to a low performer without losing their motivation? People Management · Final / onsite round · answer included
  21. Can you walk me through your engineering manager experience, what you have managed, and your leadership style? Behavioral · Phone screen · answer included
  22. Design a key-value store. Other · Final / onsite round
  23. Write a Go function to maintain a string as bytes. Coding · Final / onsite round · answer included
  24. How would you design the new storage system, especially the partitioning, as volume grows from millions of records to hundreds of millions or billions? System Design · Technical round · answer included
  25. How would you improve Siri? Product Design · Final / onsite round · answer included
  26. Walk me through a machine learning project you've run end to end. Project Discussion · Final / onsite round · answer included
  27. How would you right-size sampling for auditing live traffic? Machine Learning · Final / onsite round · answer included
  28. How do you manage a project with hard deadlines if you expect it to slip? People Management · Final / onsite round · answer included
  29. What would you do on a newly formed team if you did not have enough engineering resources? Behavioral · Phone screen · answer included
  30. Tell me about yourself. Other · Recruiter screen
  31. Design a service that manages a set of Kubernetes clusters. Coding · Final / onsite round · answer included
  32. How would you manage your team while working with very senior engineers and other stakeholders on a problem like this? System Design · Technical round · answer included
  33. Tell me about a time you built a product involving AI inference. Product Design · Final / onsite round · answer included
  34. If you needed to improve data quality on a product like Siri, how would you define the scope? Project Discussion · Final / onsite round · answer included
  35. Tell me about a time you failed. Machine Learning · Final / onsite round · answer included
  36. Do you have experience handling this kind of scale, with Apple-sized traffic and huge amounts of metrics data? Behavioral · Phone screen · answer included
  37. How do you A/B test a new feature? Other · Technical round
  38. Tell me about a time you had a disagreement. Coding · Final / onsite round · answer included
  39. Design a storage system for large block data, where keys can be up to about 1K and values can be up to about 300K. System Design · Final / onsite round · answer included
  40. Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a stakeholder. Product Design · Final / onsite round · answer included

Showing 40 of 116 questions. Open any experience for every question and how the candidate answered.

All 22 Apple interview experiences

Machine Learning EngineerApple · Jul 2026

“People are nice, questions are fair, but some questions might be niche. Had a hard time understanding the questions.”

Rejected1 roundMid level
Machine Learning EngineerApple · Jul 2026

“The interview was "Python Coding" so I prepared for Data Structures and Algorithms but I wasn't expecting this question.”

Rejected1 roundSenior
Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure (Golang)Apple · Jun 2026

“The weirdest round was a principal engineer asking me to design an AI bot for ordering employee lunches. I went in expecting cloud infrastructure and Go, then suddenly I'm trying to talk through…”

Rejected3 roundsMid level
Software Engineer (IC3)Apple · Apr 2026

“The weirdest part was the AI round. I was told to come ready to prompt whatever tool I wanted, but when I got there it basically turned into a loose system design interview about using AI agents for…”

Rejected9 roundsMid level
Software EngineerApple · Apr 2026

“Overall interview process was frustrating, as the kind of offer you get doesn't solely depend on your performance, they stack rank a pool they are interviewing.”

Offer · declined it1 roundMid level
Engineering Manager (M1/M2)Apple · Apr 2026

“The wildest round was not system design. It was a cross-org interview with a cost management partner grilling me on how I would forecast host spend for an observability team, and I had not seen that…”

6 rounds
Engineering Program Manager, Siri User ExperienceApple · Apr 2026

“My hiring manager came back as part of the final loop and literally asked me zero interview questions. The whole 30 minutes was just, what questions do you have for me, which made it feel more like…”

Waiting3 rounds
Software EngineerApple · Mar 2026

“The interview started with a resume discussion and a system design round. There wasn't enough time left to fully code the LeetCode problem and dry-run the test cases. The interviewer didn't even…”

Rejected1 roundMid level
Data ScientistApple · Mar 2026

“Hiring manager asked about AB testing and measurement and campaign through different channel, how to attribute.”

Rejected2 roundsSenior
Machine Learning EngineerApple · Mar 2026

“It was a good interview overall, I was just not prepared for it. Because it was a researcher role, i was first ask an my experience doing AI/ML research then we moved on to the technical problem,…”

Rejected2 roundsIntern
Machine Learning Engineer, CameraApple · Mar 2026

“The process was well organized and technically rigorous. Interviewers focused on problem-solving and practical imaging knowledge. What caught me off guard was the depth of questions on camera…”

In progress2 roundsEntry level
Technical Program ManagerApple · Mar 2026

“9 rounds of interviews total. The process was very long but relatively easy compare with other FAANG companies. Mostly focus on behavioral.”

Waiting4 roundsSenior
Software EngineerApple · Feb 2026

“Timeline was smooth and interviewers were friendly. Turnaround was quick. and Communication was great”

Rejected4 roundsMid level
Software EngineerApple · Feb 2026

“Hiring managers asked a lot of questions about Java internals, Java build system internals (Maven vs Gradle behaviors), networking internals (HTTP vs HTTP2)”

Waiting2 roundsSenior
Engineering Program Manager (IC3), Siri AI/MLApple · Jan 2026

“Apple merged me into one interview loop for two different EPM openings in the same Siri org, and the hardest part was that two rounds were so ML-metrics-heavy that I honestly don't know how a random…”

Rejected7 roundsMid level
Senior AI PMApple · Dec 2025

“The most Apple question I got was basically how I would make Siri actually useful, and I ended up pitching an LLM wrapper around Shortcuts so Siri could build full automations from one plain-English…”

Rejected5 roundsSenior
Data ScientistApple · Sep 2025

“The round was with the hiring manager, she asked me alot of questions on churn, profit and lifetime value, which was the focus of the team. Others were basic ML questions like bias variance…”

Rejected2 roundsMid level
AppleCare AdvisorApple · Jun 2025

“Easy overall. A lot of situational questions for 30-45 minutes. 2 hiring managers interviewing you for final round.”

Got the offer3 roundsIntern
Sales RepresentativeApple · Apr 2025

“the process is very smooth, everyone is very helpful and nice. the questions were straightforward and not too hard”

Got the offer3 roundsEntry level
Site Reliability EngineerApple · Feb 2025

“Overall, the interview process was well-structured and professionally organized. It consisted of an initial phone screening, followed by a panel interview with the team lead and two senior members.”

In progress4 roundsSenior
Machine Learning EngineerApple · Aug 2024

“Friendly interviewers, open ended questions. Wanted to go through the full arc of gathering data, figuring out sensors and deisgning the ML model”

Got the offer1 roundMid level
Site Reliability EngineerApple · Mar 2024

“I was not interested to proceed with futher interview rounds since I got promoted in my current role”

Rejected3 roundsMid level

Frequently asked questions

How many rounds are in the Apple interview?

Candidates report a typical 3 rounds, usually including a recruiter screen, online assessment, phone screen, take-home assignment.

How hard is the Apple interview?

Candidates rate it 3.1/5 on average (medium), across 22 interviews.

How long does the Apple hiring process take?

About 4 weeks from first contact to decision, based on reported timelines.

What percentage of Apple candidates get an offer?

25% of candidates with a final result got an offer (4 of 16).

What does the Apple interview focus on?

The most common round types are Behavioral, Coding, System Design, Project Discussion.