I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Feb 2020
Interview
A technical phone round and then onsite with 5 back to back interviews. After all rounds, they said I did well, but has to wait as they are interviewing other candidates. I waited for 2 months and no update from them. So i reached back to the recruiter and the recruiter says that I am still under consideration. Finally the recruiter calls me to discuss offer expectations and promised to send me an offer in couple of days. But after that no response from recruiter at all, I waited for couple weeks and sent them another email but no response to any of my emails. Finally I was fed up and left it. They dont respect the time, effort and energy put by candidate. They simple ghost you without any proper reason. If they had found another person for the role, why dont they simply inform me that and I would move on. This is a very bad experience that I never expected from a company like Apple. I would never interview with Apple again.
I applied online. I interviewed at Apple in Aug 2020
Interview
I was interviewing for Apple Pay. I applied for the role online. I got an email to start my interview process. The hiring manager reached out to schedule an interview with Apple Pay team. I had my first manager round.
We started with his background and what the team does, then moved on my experience and background.
At every point, he would stop me and ask to clarify or prove that I worked on it. He would not go deep into the technical details but ask mainly Java, Spring and other technology based question that team used.
Initially, we started with basic reactive vs functional.
have you used it? which language? then he would google and ask questions from library documentation
Spring based questions which were then followed by any random Spring injection
I was asked if I had used @Transactional? - No
Can you tell me the internal working of it? - I haven't used it or heard about it how do I tell you the internal working?
Can you tell me how @Transactional helps with concurrent execution of multiple scripts? - I told him i am taking a guess and it turned out to be right, he did not feel well, so to took a deeper stab at it, and turne out more of my guesses were right.
In the end, he switched to asking questions about kafka, I had experience in kafka, I mentioned that so he asked a couple of questions and I gave him deeper understanding of it, he wasn't happy if my answers were correct, neither would he ack the answer
Then he started bragging about why he dislikes Spring or Spring Boot and he encourages (more like forces) his team to use Java and open standards. He did show some dislike to a few of his team members who used Go.
Then we started explaining himself as a Manager who believes in Open standard and not reliant on a particular framework. But minutes back he only showed interest in Java and uses Spring but dislikes Spring boot, kinda weird
He wasn't interested in my experience but is just looking for a Java geek and who can validate his theories
Overall did not like his interview style, he was kind of a dork and had no courtesy while talking. No justifications for his theories or answers. No respect for his team members, let alone people interviewing
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Reactive vs functional
when do you use reactive?
examples of reactive and it's internal working
what are reactive streams?
Spring Boot- why do you use it?
Java 8 questions
Major advantages of java 8?
@Transaction in Spring?
Internal working of @Transactional
Why use Spring Boot?
What are the open standards for Java?
Open standards for Rest call? - what's the exact name of this standard IEEE ??
what's the api standard for financial transactions?
internal details of this api standard? & why is it present?
beanfactory vs applicationcontext?
The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Apple (San Mateo, CA) in Jun 2020
Interview
Applied online and got an email from the recruiter the next day for my availability. I gave my schedule but the recruiter scheduled a time that was not what I provided, but since it worked for me I accepted. The meeting was scheduled with 3 interviewers. Since I had not spoken to the recruiter, I emailed her and asked her the scope of the interview. But to my surprise I did not hear from the recruiter. Sent another email CCin the recruitment coordinator asking if they are proceeding with the scheduled interview and I got a response from the RC saying that the interview is still on. But, still no response from the recruiter or what to expect for the interview. On the telephonic interview day one of the interviewer called and said that the other 2 won’t be joining. I was asked about my background and some details on my current project. I thought it went well. But it has been 3weeks since then. I haven’t heard from the recruiter. I didn’t bother to ask her either. It’s such a shame that the recruiting team gets away with such antics. I’ve never had an experience where the recruiter not respond to you even before the interview. Well there is first for everything
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Dive into the current projects that I’m working on