Phone Screen 1
Intros and a good chunk of time spent on discussing my background. Then did a coding exercise that took a good 30-40 minutes. It was an Apple tagged medium level question. Then I was given 5-10 minutes to ask questions.
Phone Screen 2
Intros and then did a coding question that took about 20-25 minutes to solve. Then we did a mini systems design in about 10 minutes. Lastly, 5 minutes to ask questions to the interviewer.
Onsite
Round 1
In this session I was pepper with questions about general concepts around computer science. The interviewer was cleary very knowledgeable about all sorts of trivia about the JVM. While it is refreshing that this technical round was not LC focused, it did, however, feel a little bit like a muscle flexing round for the interviewer. Don't get me wrong, he is a nice guy, but it is challenging to pull off these types of interviews without leaving the interviewee with a negative impression.
Round 2
This was a pure coding round. I had a good idea for the general approach from the get go, but the overall implementation of the solution was somewhat challenging. I did complete this problem and I had a good 10-15 minutes left over for questions.
Round 3
This round was with the HM. I was asked a bunch of questios about my backgroud and past projects. He wanted to delve deeper into some aspects of projects, which is hard to do if you do not have the full business context and have only a few minutes to discuss the topic. There were also some questions as to my motivations for applying to the role. Lastly, there was a DB design question, which I didn't do well on.
Round 4
Approximately half of the round was dedicated to discussing my background. The other half we spend discussing a mini-system design question over the phone.
Round 5
The last round was mainly a coding round where I was given two coding questions. The second question was a twist on the first question. There were some unexpected questions that did not pertain to my background or interests in Apple.
Overall
I think overall, I proved my technical abilities, which I think is something the recruiters and all of the interviewers had concerns about as my current role is not a pure dev role. I think the round(s) that probably earned me my rejection were rounds 1 and 3. I think I failed to express my passion for joining the team and what technologies I am most passionate about. I think the interviewers were mostly friendly and easy going, which contrasts with some of the interviewers I encountered at other large tech firms where they are more robotic. I will say that one thing I noticed is that there is definitely a lack of diversity on the Apple team.