Apple interview experience - Full Stack Software engineer
Summary
I went through multiple interview rounds at Apple for a Full Stack Software Engineer position, including hiring manager, screening (backend and frontend), and loop/panel interviews with coding and system design.
Full Experience
I applied through the Apple Careers website and actually got a callback from a recruiter pretty quickly after that.
Hiring Manager (HM) Round: This was more of a conversational interview. I met with the hiring manager and most of the questions were around my past experience and how I work, plus some questions about my values and how I approach collaboration. It felt a bit less technical and more like they were trying to understand how I’d fit into the team, which was a little unexpected compared to what I had prepared for.
Screening Round: This was split into two parts:
- Backend (30 mins): I was given a coding question based on a LeetCode-style problem - basically validating whether a Sudoku board is correctly completed. So I had to check rows, columns, and 3x3 sub-grids to make sure there were no duplicates and everything followed Sudoku rules. It was pretty similar to the classic “Valid Sudoku” problem on LeetCode.
- Frontend (30 mins): This part was more theory-heavy. I was asked questions about React fundamentals, CSS concepts, and some general frontend behavioral questions (like how I approach UI issues, structure components, etc.).
Loop / Panel Interviews:
- HM round : standard behavioural
- Frontend coding : given some simple java script and react coding
- Backend coding : Nuts and bolts quick sort problem , merge overlapping intervals, one behavioural question
- System design : logs monitoring system
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Interview Questions (3)
Validate Sudoku Board
Given a 9x9 Sudoku board, determine if it is valid. The board must satisfy Sudoku rules: each row, each column, and each of the nine 3x3 sub-grids contain no duplicate numbers (1-9). Empty cells are allowed.
Merge Overlapping Intervals
Given an array of intervals where each interval is represented as [start, end], merge all overlapping intervals and return an array of the merged intervals.
Logs Monitoring System Design
Design a system for collecting, storing, and monitoring logs from multiple services. Discuss components such as log ingestion, storage, real‑time querying, alerting, scalability, and reliability.