I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Sept 2011
Interview
Applied online, contacted a couple of weeks later by recruiter. Had a phone interview with the hiring manager consisting of some basic technical questions and talked about my experience. Then had about a week to complete a design project and presentation. Once that was submitted I was invited to interview in person.
In person interview consisted of about 7 1:1 or 2:1 interviews. In each case we talked about 1/3 of the time on past projects I had worked on, and spent a bit of the time with technical questions and then each interviewer would present a component and ask how it was made. Definitely be able to justify and explain each material and design decisions on past projects that you talk about. Also should be very familiar with casting and other metal manufacturing processes. The day also included lunch with several members of their team conducting an informal group interview.
My interview ended after this stage but if it had continued there would have been additional day to present the design project to a group of their engineers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What are the different ways you can you tell if this part is steel or aluminium.
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.
I applied through university. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Apr 2026
Interview
Interview with hiring manager then virtual onsite. They ask you general mechanical engineering questions as well as questions dependent on type of team and skills they are looking for. Not bad overall just brush up on basic beam deflection, GD&T, Design analysis etc.
They gave me a take home tolerance analysis worksheet. It was essentially a tolerance stack up for one of their products and felt fairly straight forward. Thought I answered it well but ultimately they decided to move forward with other candidates.