2015–2026 Apple SWE New Grad & Early-Career OA / Interviews: 42 Experiences (Part 2 :)

Candidate experiences 06–27

06: A Sales Engineering team with three final conversations

Report: Mar 1, 2026 · Role: Entry-Level Software Engineering · Team: Sales Engineering

Completed screen; panel still ahead

The candidate had passed one screening interview. Their scheduled final panel contained a hiring-manager interview of 45 minutes, a technical interview of 30–45 minutes, and an Early Career/ECH interview of 30 minutes.

When another commenter suggested a larger panel might follow, the candidate said the recruiter had identified these three interviews as the final stage. The post did not contain an outcome or an actual coding prompt. Entry level was explicit; new-graduate status was not separately confirmed.

07: An ASE loop with two screens and five panel interviews

Thread opened: Mar 1, 2026; commenter’s date not verified · Role: Early Career, Apple Services Engineering · Candidate: Master’s student · Requisition: 2+ years of experience

Two technical screens

A separate candidate in the same discussion had already completed two LeetCode-based screens. Each included a short discussion of how they would test the solution in production. They did not name the coding tasks or the program being tested.

Five-interview panel

Two interviews covered data structures and algorithms; two covered system design. A fifth interview, advertised as behavioral, became another technical conversation involving system design and networking. None of the systems or coding prompts was identified.

The candidate called themselves a new graduate/early-career applicant because they were completing a master’s degree, while also stating that the job’s minimum requirement was two years of experience. That is a different cohort from an explicitly new-grad requisition.

08: Seattle: two screens followed by a five-interview panel

Interview: Feb 2026 · Role: SWE New Grad · Location: Seattle

Screens

A recruiter contacted the candidate. Both screening interviews combined LeetCode-style coding with technical fundamentals.

Virtual panel

The five back-to-back interviews comprised two coding/technical rounds, one debugging round, one manager conversation, and one résumé interview. The complete process took about three weeks. The report did not identify the coding or debugging tasks.

09: A behavioral hiring-manager interview before the coding screen

Interview: Feb 2026 · Role: SWE New Grad · Result: Did not reach the panel

Hiring manager and technical screen

A recruiter email led to a behavioral hiring-manager interview, then a technical screen with one LeetCode Medium problem. A disclosed technical question asked how multithreading works; the coding task itself was unnamed.

The next planned stage was a six-interview panel. The candidate did not advance to it, so those six interviews are an announced process, not completed experience.

10: Taipei: C, a Dijkstra-based task, and a long onsite

Interview: Oct–Nov 2025 · Cohort: 2026 New Grad SWE · Location: Taipei, Xinyi · Result: Rejected

Recruiter call and phone interview

The candidate applied one evening in October and received a recruiter call the next morning. After confirming details, the recruiter gave a short C test. The later technical phone interview had two runnable C problems and some OS questions; interviewers offered hints when the candidate got stuck.

For the second coding problem, the candidate recognized a classic task they would normally solve with Dijkstra. They became stuck because they did not have a heap ready in C. The interviewer said the fastest method was unnecessary, so they switched to an array approach but ran out of time. The exact original graph variant was not disclosed. They still received a pass the following day.

November onsite

The onsite occupied an afternoon at Apple’s Xinyi office. It began with a pointer-manipulation problem, not the linked-list question the candidate expected. They initially misread it, made several detailed C mistakes, and felt the pressure of nearly ten people watching locally and online. The pointer operation itself was not described.

Seven one-to-one interviews followed, covering OS, résumé, and behavioral topics in both Chinese and English. The candidate left at 6 p.m. and received a rejection more than a week later. The report’s 2026 label describes the graduate cohort; these Apple interviews occurred in 2025.

11: A US embedded graduate was also screened for SDE

Interview period: Oct 2024–Oct 2025 · Role family: Embedded/Firmware New Grad and one SDE screen · Location: US

Several Apple applications

The candidate described three Apple first-round interviews and two panels, with formats of one screen plus four interviews and one screen plus five interviews. They had arranged an Apple panel spanning more than four interviews across two days.

One Apple question compared static in C and C++. In another application, HR routed them to an SDE interview; the screen asked for topological sorting, which they attempted in C but did not finish.

The longer article also covered other companies and general practice. Its unassigned memcpy, list, bit-manipulation, and concurrency examples are not additional Apple questions.

12: An embedded graduate’s recruiter screen asked about memory

Report: Sep 3, 2025 · Role: Embedded, security-related background · Location: Outside the US, country not given

Recruiter phone screening

The candidate’s original post asked how to prepare for an upcoming embedded interview. In their own reply, they confirmed that the recruiter had already asked where variables reside: heap, stack, global storage, or code memory.

They described a cybersecurity background and said the job emphasized security. Their OS, bit-manipulation, and linked-list preparation list was preparation, not a list of completed technical-interview questions. No later technical result was reported.

13: A graduate coding question: print a diamond

Report: Sep 3, 2025 · Interview: Earlier new-grad application, year not given · Role family: Embedded software

Historical new-grad interview

A different candidate recalled being asked to output a diamond shape on standard output when interviewing as a new graduate. They did not specify the diamond’s size, whether it was filled, or its whitespace rules. The linked practice exercise states its own choices for those details.

The same commenter mentioned a more recent concurrency brain-teaser. That belonged to another interview period and was not established as a new-grad question, so it is not part of this graduate account.

14: An IS&T reliability screen centered on Linux

Interview: Aug 2025 · Role: Early-Career Software Engineering, DevOps/Reliability · Location: US

First interview

The candidate initially said they lacked direct DevOps experience. In a later update, they described an actual first interview lasting about 20 minutes, focused on their Linux experience and related questions. No particular command, troubleshooting case, or coding task was disclosed. The later follow-up date does not move the interview into 2026.

15: Two junior accounts with different OA language rules

Report: Aug 14, 2025 · Role: Junior Software Engineer, ICT2 · Cohort: New-grad status not established

Online assessment

Java and Python were available. One task asked for maximum weight using two bags. Another gave a 15×10 character grid: start at (0,0), follow the unique four-directional path with no branches or cycles, collect lowercase letters, and ignore * cells.

Java backend interview

The candidate reported résumé questions, basic Java, Coin Change and Coin Change II, then OS, OOP, and system-design discussion. They said they reached optimal solutions for both dynamic-programming tasks. No specific design system was named.

The title said junior/ICT2, while the account also discussed current pay and career direction. It does not establish a zero-experience graduate application.

An earlier anonymous fresher account — August 6

Completed OA

The candidate said the OA contained two coding questions and allowed only Java. Neither question was disclosed.

Announced interviews

The expected next rounds were DSA; Java/Python, microservices, and LLD; then a techno-managerial interview. Those were upcoming rounds, not confirmed completed interviews. The Java-only and Java/Python OA versions remain distinct; the reports do not establish whether they came from the same person.

These accounts disagree on the permitted OA languages. They are shown separately within this entry, and their unknown relationship does not add another candidate to the headline count.

16: A graduate applied to a firmware role asking for four years

Report: Sep 3, 2025 · Interview: A few months earlier · Role: Firmware Engineering · Result: Rejected after two technical interviews

Two technical rounds

This candidate recalled bit manipulation, choosing between SPI/I2C/UART, checking whether a new prototype board works during board bring-up, and reading poor C code to explain its purpose and fix problems. Neither the bitmask operation nor the code’s intended behavior was provided.

They struggled with the coding section and needed time and interviewer hints on a bitmasking question. They described both interviewers as kind and encouraging. The two interviews were a week apart, with rejection about a week after the second. The candidate was a new graduate, but the firmware requisition asked for four years of experience.

17: A storage-team screen with an unnamed file question

Report: Jul 30, 2025; completed-call update Jul 31 UTC · Role: Entry-Level SWE, Distributed Systems–Storage · Location: California

Hiring-manager call

A referral led to recruiter contact about a month later. The planned first call was a 45-minute coding interview. In an update saying the call had happened that day, the candidate described one LeetCode Medium file-related question, previous experience, and team matching.

The file task’s operation and output were not given. The reply’s UTC publication date does not establish the author’s local interview day. They were still waiting for an update in early August. Entry level was explicit; new-graduate status was not confirmed.

18: The manager interviews continued the technical loop

Interview: Jul 2025 · Role: SWE New Grad, full time · Location: US

Panel and management interviews

After passing a five-interview virtual panel, the candidate was waiting to meet the hiring manager, a higher-level manager, and a director. Their own later update said these conversations were highly technical and included coding: they felt like an extension of the loop. No task was named. The account does not support describing all manager rounds as behavioral.

19: Cork: a behavioral first interview with two senior engineers

Report: Feb 24, 2025 · Role: Graduate Software Engineer · Location: Cork, Ireland · Result: No offer

First interview

After applying online, the candidate met two senior software engineers from the team. A short introduction led mostly to behavioral questions. They did not advance. The published question field contained only the start of a “Tell me about a time…” question, without the situation being asked about; no coding question was reported.

20: An IS&T offer after a DSA screen and three team interviews

Report: Dec 9, 2024 · Role: Early-Career SWE, IS&T · Location: US · Candidate: June-2024 graduate · Result: Offer

Screen and team interviews

The candidate described the process as two stages: one pure-DSA screening call, followed by three virtual team-matching interviews combining DSA, computer-science fundamentals, and behavioral questions. No specific coding prompt was disclosed.

Their roughly 300 LeetCode problems and Blind 75/NeetCode 150 preparation described how they studied, not which questions Apple asked. They confirmed that this was IS&T Early Careers and not Evolve.

21: A recruiter screen before a possible hiring event

Interview: Nov 2024 · Role: SWE New Grad · Location: Cupertino

Recruiter conversation

The recruiter contacted the candidate, arranged a call, and asked about their skills and plans after graduation. The candidate was told that passing this screen could lead to an invitation to a concentrated hiring event. The report did not establish that the event took place for this applicant.

22: New York IS&T: a technical screen followed quickly by finals

Interview: Oct 2024 · Role: SWE New Grad, IS&T · Location: New York

Technical and final interviews

Recruiter contact led directly to a technical first interview; this candidate reported neither an OA nor a separate recruiter call. Virtual finals followed the next day, before they knew the particular team. A disclosed task asked them to rotate an array by k. Direction and an in-place requirement were not included in the recollection.

23: Austin: explain and improve an iOS app

Interview: Feb 2024 · Role: SWE New Grad · Location: Austin · Result: Did not advance

Technical screen

A recruiter arranged a technical interview about a week after contacting the candidate. They were asked about iOS applications they had built and how they would improve one. The report did not name an application or assign a shared implementation exercise. The candidate did not reach the next round.

24: Evolve: essays, a coding screen, and code review

Interview period: Oct–Nov 2023 · Program: Evolve New Grad

Application and technical rounds

The original poster said they applied without a referral or OA, answered essay questions, and heard back about a week later. Their updates described a LeetCode-Medium-style first interview and a code-review interview. The prompt and code under review were not disclosed. More than a week after the review, they were still awaiting feedback.

25: GHC: a long queue and a brief hiring-manager conversation

Interview: Sep 2023 · Role: SWE New Grad · Event: Grace Hopper Celebration

Conference conversation

The candidate waited roughly three hours and spoke to a hiring manager for about four minutes. The questions were a self-introduction and why they wanted to work at Apple. This account describes the conference interaction, not a full technical loop.

26: A direct message to an engineering manager led to an interview

Job search: 2022–2023 · Role family: Graduate software engineering

Getting the interview

The graduate contacted an Apple engineering manager through LinkedIn and obtained an interview. During the interview, team members were unreceptive to their use of Python, and that process did not continue. No coding question was disclosed. This was one team’s language reaction, not evidence that Apple prohibits Python.

27: Evolve: two conversations before a panel invitation

Interview period: Oct 2022 · Program: Evolve, spring-2023 graduate cohort

Completed conversations

One candidate commenting in the discussion had completed a 30-minute hiring-team call and a 45-minute behavioral interview with a senior engineer/manager, including high-level résumé discussion. They later received a panel invitation. Other commenters' timelines are not extra stages in this candidate’s process, and no coding question was supplied.

In this series: Part 1 · Part 2 (current) · Part 3