I was recruited, presumably from having my resume out on Monster, LinkedIn, or Coroflot. After an initial phone screening with a very nice gentleman, I was scheduled for a phone interview with members of the engineering team. I point out that the recruiter was nice, and provided me as much information as he could but it was clear he was not based in Cupertino and instead was charged with getting a list of candidates for the engineers. I don't think Apple gave him more information than they thought he needed. BUt hey, its a call with Apple so of course I was interested! I suppose this should be a good time to emphasize I am NOT entry level, and am in fact a manager at a large Fortune 500 company. Trust me, you know the brand. The engineers, on the other hand, were among some of the most condescending and pompous individuals I have ever had the misfortune of interviewing with. Not only did they ask me minimal questions about my experience, when I pressed them for details about what they were hiring me for, I got cagey, half answers. The company is so obsessed with clandestine secrecy that they won't even tell prospective hires what the job entails... I guess enough bright-eyed bushy-tailed college grads leap sight unseen at a chance to work in a meat grinder. I on the other hand, wanted to know about roles and responsibilities, and compensation giving it would require relocation to the most expensive metro area in the country. As I said, they balked at my questions and only casually asked me about my technical experience. They were pretty set on making me answer the Khan Academy brain teasers you see other reviews describe. I won't go into detail, but suffice to say in the event you make an incorrect assumption or give a wrong answer, they are quick to tutor/correct you on the appropriate mathematical equations. It's been a few years since I needed buoyancy and civil engineering questions, sorry if my brain is a little rusty from ya know, actually working in the real world and dealing with overseas manufacturers and margin targets. I entertained them for one brain teaser, and assumed at some point they would ask about my experience. They didn't and started brain teaser number 2. I cut them off and said if they didn't have any substantive questions for me, and if they were unwilling or unprepared to answer relevant questions I had for them, then there was no point in continuing. I think this caught them off guard, but they insisted they did not have the ability to deviate from the questions they needed to cover per HR. What a boatload of crap. Again, I'm not entry level. This isn't my first rodeo, and I think I was older than the interviewer. tl;dr: Apple needs to be a little more humble and realize that eventually the pool of people begging to work for you will dry up. You might be today's hottest company but you have crashed and burned before. Look to history, as it is riddled with once-giants who allowed ego to take over and are now gone or in bankruptcy (automakers, Sears, RIM, most airlines).

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.