However, based on available information, I am 100% certain that I couldn't successfully complete the on-command hypothetical coding exercises with someone standing over my shoulder, along with the other mental and social gymnastics associated with applying at any of these companies. I wonder how many other well-qualified people are out there that will simply never apply because of the drawn-out, intimidating hiring process.

Other than that the question is stupid, and most companies have a policy that forbids such questions. Same goes for "piano tuners in Manhattan" and "why are manholes round".

1. To see what your thought process would be in figuring out the answer. 2. To judge your reaction to such a nonsensical question. 3. To show off (either the interviewer is showing off or the company is showing off).

That said, they have some value depending on the position your being interviewed for.

I imagine that's a bit like asking how can you completely clean malware off a computer without reformatting. The answer is roughly the same: In the general case it's impossible, because once arbitrary code has been executed on your machine, nothing can be trusted.

Every time I think about applying to, e.g. Google, and start looking at how I need to prepare, I realize it's going to take around 40hrs of algorithm prep followed by a gruelling interview process. And at the end, I may fail due to interview nerves or whatever. It's hard to justify so much time. Then again, maybe working at these big companies is really worth it (many people seem to think so!).

Nowadays, I won't put up with more than a couple hours of interview. 1 hour I think is a good amount. Granted I work on contract and this is how things tend to be done in London. For a permanent role, my limit would probably be 4 hours on site + 3-4 hours off site (like a coding test).

I would definitely recommend applying to these companies just so you can say "Hey, I tried and did it" (did it = applied, not necessarily got hired). The getting hired part is just a secondary thing, it's a personal accomplishment that may come or not, but it shouldn't necessarily be your end goal.

At least this is how I feel and how I felt after interviewing at Google.

Full disclosure: I am currently an intern at Google after having failed the full-time interview process and decided to get a Master's degree, which found me back at Google as an intern.

I keep my data structures and algorithms book on the shelf - it was printed 15 years ago and uses Java, but it's easy enough to implement in something else. I used to restudy it every few years, for interviews. You need to be ready to do tree traversal, detect cycles in lists, sort and search, create a hash, find shortest paths in graphs.

I go back and forth on whether I'd do this again. I can't say never, because a good enough job might be worth the effort and risk, but I'm hesitant. How many times in life do you want to retake your undergraduate data structures and algorithms exam? I would outright refuse to do a lengthy "homework assignment". I've done that once (7-8 hours recommended time), sent it in, crickets chirping, and a one line brush off from a recruiter a full month later. I'm actually embarrassed to admit I even did this once.

As an aside, while I generally take a dim view of professional licensing, I wouldn't mind taking a "bar exam" for software development if (big if) it were well designed and administered, and perhaps voluntary to avoid regulatory capture. The reason is, I wouldn't mind studying a hundred hours or more for this test if it was widely respected and meant I wouldn't have to keep re-taking it every time I interview.

Maybe it's because my focus is web, but I have never had to do any of these. My eyes typically glaze over any time someone mentions algorithms. Not because of lack of interest, but because I'm self-taught, have only had one or two academic CS classes, and have never taken a course on algorithms.

When we're hiring developers we do have a "take-home" test of sorts but you can do it in an hour or less. This is prior to our in-person general job/fit interview (my boss) and the technical interview/review (me).

I dropped out of a masters degree to join a startup as a .NET developer, but kept in touch with a few guys finishing there. One of them now works for Google. He was always great in the algorithm classes, and he knew his theory reasonably well, but he'd constantly struggle with writing the code and REALLY grasping OO. I'd help him structure his Java code, and he'd help me grasp data structures.

He's been there a good four years now, so he's clearly doing something right, but I was initially shocked that he was able to get in when things like static classes confused him.

Just because somebody had a hard time grasping Object Oriented Programming (which, really, is not as useful anymore. Plenty of brilliant developers moved past it) in school does not mean that he'd not be a good fit for a demanding company a few years later.

This is true for everybody, by the way, just because you feel like you're struggling on some concepts, don't dismiss yourselves. Try applying at some companies that might be 'out of your league' and you will realize that maybe some of them actually aren't that out there after all.

There's no sure-fire way to know exactly who you're hiring unless you know the person (and even then!).

But: many of these companies are using the wrong criteria, out of bad habit or sheer laziness. You get "brain teaser" questions ("how would you tell which light bulb had been on in the past 10 minutes?"), coding tests, even demands to know which lsof flag does foobar (but that's why God invented man pages!). In my estimation, the only real way to get inside someone's head is to get them talking about what they've worked on, hear their war stories, and talk in depth about how they've solved problems and built things.

Or maybe he works on making a set of algorithms 5% faster.

Making a sorting algorithm just 1% faster for the most used cases will probably save a company like Google vast amounts of electricity.

I guess there are plenty people who understand both algorithms and programming language features well. But if you want someone who is awesome in algorithms you might not care if they couldn't grasp the simplest programming language feature like a for-each loop, or a static variable.

They couldn't complete a single practical lab exercise without help from peers or lecturers throughout the entire time I knew them.

They didn't make it past their trial period.

It makes me wonder whether these hiring processes are built for people leaving university, and not necessarily for those that have spent a number of years as software developers. It's a good way to get those that "know" their theory, but it sounds like a terrible way to hire someone who is expected to be not just a competent developer, but talented.

From my experience, it's less the on-command hypothetical coding exercises (which you will get, and they will be challenging), but more so if you pick up an unfortunate draw of one of your anti-loopers (see famous Steve Yegge post).

I ultimately interviewed in early January with a team that really wanted me, but was rejected at a late stage executive committee review (surprising even my potential hiring manager and the recruiter). While I can't say for certain the precise factors that impacted my candidacy, I'm reasonably sure a significant component was one particular on-site interview that was almost a year ago. That particular interview was awkward right from the opening non-technical questions. Not sure if my interviewer was having a bad day. I'm not sure how I was scored, but I feel it was a "B" performance for me, the others felt like "As". I will say that its sometimes hard to gauge one's on performance as the interviewers were all nice and innately would not display much signs of frustration or dissatisfaction for a candidate to get the feedback signals that might be noticeable at other job interviews.

In the end, they seem to require near unanimous consent to complete the hiring process.

For those reluctant to try, I'd strongly recommend making an initial attempt at a Google job. You'll meet some remarkably nice, smart people and have some great discussions. While I can't be certain (as I didn't succeed), you don't need to be 100% perfect on your interviews. Quick, insightful and on the right track are important though. You do need to be smart, know what you are doing, and practice a bit on programming brain teasers (which should be fun for the right person).

IMHO, its worth the initial attempt, but if things don't work out the in first round of on-site interviews, it may be impossible to overcome that in later rounds, much to my dismay. The only downside is that you might convince yourself that you really want to work there and you'll have to face reality again if things don't work out. Don't be afraid to try.

I tend to err on the side of "I suck" when an interview doesn't go my way. Some people err on the side where everyone else is the problem. Different ways to deal with butt hurt.

Disclaimer: I have interviewed at Google and other hard places with mixed results.

I'm fairly certain I could study for a few weeks and ace the tests. I'm unfortunately also very resistant to doing useless work.

When the first interaction with a company involves requiring me to do useless work to prove my commitment (and everyone in the company has passed that hurdle) I very much doubt that I would be... how shall I put it... a good 'culture fit.'

Better to study a new language or statistics / big data. Rather, the most important skill you have day to day is your ability to concentrate & get stuff done. & the ability to take a big problem and turn it into manageable smaller tasks.

I think the focus on algorithms can be an underhanded way to prefer young, fresh out of school applicants. Those with good academic track records and with fresh mitochondria that can be utilized for great coding results.

This is exactly the thought that came to mind when I started reading this chain, and I'm happy you hit on it. This is definitely part of that elusive ageism that we keep hearing about in SV.

I was one of them; I participated in my school's ACM ICPC [0] teams. Just knowing the algorithms wasn't enough; we had to know what problems they applied to and how to quickly and effectively code them, often with a translation layer for the required inputs and outputs. This was hours of practice every week, and I suspect the top teams are a combination of natural talent and even more practice than I put in.

Even just four years later, I would read through the packet of problems for the year and feel out of practice. I would read problems and recognize that, once I could have coded it within a half hour, but not anymore. I have traded having deep knowledge of problems with the daily practice of "engineering in the real world", and I would not even want to have it another way.

[0] http://icpc.baylor.edu/

I have never had to implement a linked list in my career. I am a much better software engineer now, writing modular, maintainable applications, but they want to see what obscure algorithm I can implement in an hour and a half? Whats the point in that?

(I had a skype interview with Google before. Messed up the algorithm question, then half an hour after the interview was finished a good solution came into my head).

Maybe I should have recognized they were impossible and addressed the interviewer. They were usually very number-theory heavy problems. After a bit of research, I determined that it wasn't really answerable, and people have done PHD work at MIT, CMU, etc.. to investigate the question I was given 30 minutes to work on.

I don't lie about my qualifications. I'm not a PHD student, there is nothing on my resume or CV that would imply I'd be aware of some obscure (not something I'd consider important to comp sci like crypto) area of research... but still, asked these really oddball questions.

I was a bit non-plussed at that one. Still don’t know what he was really trying to get at.

1. You either know immediately that it is impossible and you say so, which means you've encountered the problem and its related research before.

2. You are a savant, like Kim Peek, and work out the solution to a PHd level research problem in your head in a few minutes, giving the answer that it is impossible.

3. Pretend to be (2) by already knowing (1), but having a good poker face and then faking an "Ah ha!" moment

4. Sit there, unsure, feeling stupid, wondering if you're supposed to know the answer to this already or if you're supposed to be smart enough to figure it out.

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how any of these outcomes are in any way beneficial to the interview process.

(1-3). Know the solution already or be a genius and find the solution surprisingly fast.

4. Sit there feeling stupid.

The idea is to give you an extraordinarily hard problem without the expectation that you'll solve it. The reasoning of the employer is the following:

I. You fall into the options (1-3) and you are either a genius or the question was too easy. Either way its not bad for you.

II. You don't have enough knowledge at hand to approach the problem. Then you do either what described in option 4. xor you accept and be honest when you don't know something and you know what to do next; identify information you are missing and how you can get it.

Since the case I. is rare and the case II. gives the employer a good picture of you it's a good question for an interview.

I did hit walls, understandably, which ultimately ended the interview with a lot of "hmmm, not really sure. Maybe this? No? Oh... Hm... [..]"

They didn't move forward. Oh well!

There's a number of folks who are philosophically at the extreme opposite of what Apple stands for, too, and who won't even think about applying there for that particular reason.

On the contrary, I've been in a position that I have to decide for applicants ( by doing technical interview ) if they could do the work or can not do it. It was a pleasant job when I can see some sparks of commitment and joy of doing the work. But talking more with the candidates it looked like they had a really hard time, being screened by the HR team, since they didn't have proper profile indicators, like "keywords in the CV", "past experience", "good university degree", "recommendations" and so on.

Does it lead to overall better hires than a less grueling process? I have no idea. But they must think it does.

The main issue for me is that I find it ridiculous to go to N teleconference interviews and then get turned down in person. I'm sure it's for some stupid reason like "all of our team like sports and you don't seem quite enthusiastic about it"

They push for you to "be honest" but that's only an excuse for turning you down. Give them the answers they want to hear and you'll be fine. Also the pressure of the moment is important.

(Also I would like to see their faces when my MBP's Facetime wouldn't connect - talk about a reliable software... not)

The real task is to figure out what you're really like after the interview facade goes down, and being able to envision you as part of the team.

It's a reason there's so much thought and discussion these days on ways to effectively anonymize people during job searches and interviews, I think. An interviewer / hiring manager needs to be very aware of their own feelings and mindset when making a decision to ensure the "seeing you" part of the decision process is done consciously and purposefully.

At the end of the day, it comes down to being able to truly connect with your interviewers and breaking out of the typical question-answer format. It sounds like you almost reached that point - I'm not sure if the lunch was a standard thing they did with all applicants, but it did seem like they were really interested in you. It could be that the process came down to a handful of equally desirable candidates, at which point luck plays a large role in deciding who gets the job. I would definitely keep in touch with everyone you met, and apply again at the next opportunity.

My culture screen was in-person, while I was being interviewed technically. Part of their process was getting to know me. I'm relaxed in interviews, joke around, and have a good time because at the end of the day, we need to like what we do. I find that this confidence has opened a lot of doors for me, but I do have to work very hard to project it given my internal strife. I often find that interviewers are more nervous than me, frankly, because as an industry we tend to toss people in a room who are themselves suffering from imposter syndrome and ask them to gauge someone they've never met with very little interview training. I was interviewing for one company on my third day.

I am the polar opposite of what I would consider to be someone who "fits Apple culture," in general, but it's worth remembering that there are vastly different cultures in different areas. I'm fat, I don't dress well, I'm largely unkempt if left to my own devices, I'm not a social butterfly -- put a soldering iron in my hand and I'll have a good time. I enjoy theoreticals about encryption and side channel attacks. I identify more with Woz than Jobs. Universally, across the board, every time I told someone I'm an engineer at Apple I got the look up and down and "you are?" in reply. I think people have an image of Apple that's formed from the typical customer and perhaps the retail folks; while that's true to an extent (what's served at Caffe Macs is an often great example, but you can find a kick-ass burger if you know which one to go to), I didn't find that Apple struck me as especially hipster or faux-cool or however you want to think of it. Again, maybe my area, but typical Web startup people generally break that way, so I would have expected Apple to reflect it, but no. That's neither here nor there and represents a very compartmentalized view. (I didn't work on Infinite Loop, and when I made journeys over there I got a different feeling, so that might be related.)

Just based on my own experience, I think team fit goes way over culture fit, and I don't think OP's experience sounds like a culture screen.

The other difference is that my process was practically a mirrored copy of Google's, with recruiter courting, technical screen by the recruiter, deeper screen by the #2 on the team, in person interviews. I interviewed for two different teams at Apple (one no-hired me, which was fun because then I was responsible for some of their stuff), and the process was nearly identical, except the no-hire team put a pair of people in the room and my accepting team put only one for each interview. At no point was FaceTime ever used. In fact, I wasn't aware that was a norm anywhere, but I admit that my purview was limited to my area.

There's no shortage of folklore about Jobs hand-picking teams, as I'm sure you know, and moving around at Apple is very social by its nature. You have to make a conscious effort to end up in a position where you get an opportunity to build Swift, or iPhone (I mean building it, not keeping it going; vast numbers of people keep it going now), or Apple Watch unless you're hired into an essential role for something like that. Most people at Apple are doing the same things you and I do: upgrading Cassandra, diagnosing some OS bug that only appears on certain phones and carriers, localizing a piece of iTunes. So it becomes a question of how much you're willing to invest to earn your place at Federighi's side on stage, launching your passion that will change the world. For some, that equation breaks the right way. For me, I need more immediate feedback. Make sense? More me than them.

My time in the peninsula taught me that I value small, scrappy teams more, and that I'm not cut out for Facebook, Google, Apple, and friends. For that very same reason, I'm not the best person to ask on whether you should work for Apple or Google: some people thrive very well in large-scale corporate organizations but it isn't for me. In general, I'd wager a new grad should do a peninsula tour before getting into the risk game up 101, but I think that's a very myopic view, if I'm honest.

If a corp were to have dialogues with every rejected candidate it would take considerable effort with little to no ROI.

A decision will be completely legitimate and within the bounds of fair practice, and the rejected interview candidate could still bring a case against the company, costing time and lawyer fees.

Also, from a practical standpoint, should the interviewer see 50 candidates for a position, it's a full-time job just writing the "this is why we didn't pick you" letters.

You make it sound like the only option is passive acceptance.

- It is difficult to double down on feedback requests when they stop returning your calls and emails after the generic rejection pablum

- One is hesitant to do the same to them (ignoring their requests)

Fundamentally there is a difference in the power relationship here, in my opinion. A typical company can and is able to afford to treat candidates badly but I don't believe that a typical candidate enjoys a similar luxury.

Another factor I've heard considered in that situation; Does he/she have a lifestyle that can fit in this town? Windsurfers quickly change their minds about living in Anchorage, and next thing you know it's hiring time again.

I feel you have to look at job interviews like a hand of poker or the like. There are things you can do to increase your odds, but even with perfect play not every hand is winnable.

I applied for a Developer position back in the summer (not at Apple) and after a great phone interview I never heard back.

Today, more than 7 months later I got a call out of the blue saying the position was just advertised again and they were really disappointed I didn't apply (I didn't see it) apparently my resume was great and I scored really high on the phone interview (who knew?) so they've had me submit my resume today and have already started calling my references.

I'm very curious why it all fell in a heap 7 months ago, but I suspect internal politics or the budget dried up or some-such.

So instead of posting a new req, when they had just gone through a bunch of interviews, they hired someone from the previous round, since it was fairly recent.

And like first dates, you can do all the right things, etc. And you think things went well, but, you find out that there is no second date.

Do you want an offer? Don't be yourself: be who they need. If it requires you to be a bit different from who you are, so be it.

Once you get the offer, the power structure changes: you're the one in control. You're the one now faced with the tyranny of choice. This is when you can decide whether accepting this job would be at odds with who you are. But you know what? Even if that's the impression you got from the interview, your job at that company might still end up being different. You could end up in a team that's completely different from the ones who interviewed you. Or the job might end up being different. Or you might end up finding out you like things you didn't think you would.

Get an offer. At all costs. Then you're in charge.

My point is when you're interviewing, do your thing, show them what you have, show them your capabilities, your dedication, vision, whatever, using your way --using 'zak_mc_krackens'' style is not going to work for me, because I will not wear it well. I won't do your technique justice. Sure, over time, one learns how to refine interviewing skills/technique, but we do it in our own 'voices'.

Don't over think it. As I said, you can do everything just right, but for whatever reason, they pick someone else. They may even consciously come to regret their decision --just like in dating. Interviewing and dating are more art than science. Sure, be prepared, show your stuff, but none of that guarantees landing the job. So there is no reason to beat yourself up for not getting the job.

You have all day to write code on your computer at a job. There is no rush. But the interview is much different than what you'd be doing at the job.

This is so true. If you remind the person interviewing of someone they don't like, your chances lessen. You have no control over that. Also be aware that non-HR people have to interview people with not a ton of guidance or experience in interviewing. When I interviewed people I was trying to figure out was 1) can this person help us, 2) what will it be like working with them.

Also remember that it can work the other way too. You are trying to see if you'd like to work there while interviewing. At my last company we had people reject us. And when looking for a job last year I politely told a couple companies I thought would be great I was not interested after interviewing.

Silicon Valley as an engineer is a demanding environment to be in, and like many such environments getting in is quite a challenge. As an outsider, you are at many disadvantages: you don't know the culture, you don't know how things get done, you don't know who to talk to and who will waste your time, and so on. So to get in, not only are you fighting against all of these obstacles, but you also have to perform at the level which is expected of everyone, which might be higher than what you're used to.

This means that the odds of getting in on your first try are quite, quite low. If your goal is really to make it there, you have to treat it as a numbers game - after 5, 10, 20 tries, you'll probably get in. Or maybe if your dream is to work at Google/Facebook/etc., then the best way to do it is to first start working for a smaller, lesser known company that's having a harder time hiring. Make yourself a name there, volunteer to give some talks, post some open source projects that'll bring your name at the top of Hacker News for a day, and after a couple of years, knock again at the door of your dream company. Or maybe they'll end up knocking at your door again very soon. Recruiters know very well that the number of false negatives is quite high, and that people can change very fast.

If you want to take part, you have to put in a lot of effort and personal work, and expect things to take time- you have to stay humble, and you have to keep pushing. I think it's worth it. Some people don't believe that it is, and that's completely fine- but you have to know whether you want it or not. If you really do, then don't give up on the first obstacle.

Sure, 700 billion is an impressive market cap for a company, but that's not what it's all about for the creative people of Apple.

$6,000 of your time, meh, we all invest that much in side projects, year after year, if not more frequently than that.

5,000 miles, yeah, so you took a flight, is this supposed to be a measure of something of significance? Yes we sometimes travel for interviews. Putting mileage numbers to it almost sounds like complaining.

17 hours of WWDC videos, that's a sliver of a slice of what's available. If anything, it's an embarrassing number to admit to, for someone who claims to be an Apple UI expert.

Maybe this weird fixation on off-point numbers was a turnoff for the kind folks at Apple, I don't know.

> Note: The numbers (700 Billion, etc) are there to give context and a sense of scale. This wasn’t a small boutique design company—which fwiw I’ve worked for a couple and loved it—this was the company who got valued by that amount because they’re doing something interesting. I personally don’t see money as a measure of worth, but as a freelancer and well, running my business, should not and cannot ignore it. Numbers such as ‘5000 miles’ are there just for stylistic reasons, saying ‘a flight’ would be way more banal. Chill and have a good one.

About 9 interviews later over 4 spread-out days, I was told I had done quite well during the interview process.

Eventually I was not given the position because I was holding a beer in my LinkedIn picture.

They ended up paying my current employer (their vendor at the time) astronomical amounts of money to do the very same service, done by me, on-site.

Go figure.

If they don't want my whole personality, they can't have my intelligence.

I refuse to turn myself into a "corporate robot" for the sake of a paycheck.

They only grep the CVs for words, if you put you're a lion tamer, archeologist, but has the word PHP in your CV (or something similar) you'll get a flood of IT jobs

My contact at the client gathered up all the photos and bios and emailed them to me. Maybe 25% of the photos were professional headshots. The majority were just crappy cell phone pictures.

The rest were people at parties holding a beer. I emailed my contact to make sure he wanted me to use these and he told me to go ahead. Sure enough, a day after we went live I get a pissed-off call from him demanding to know why I used those photos.

My personality is my personality, and when you hire me you're going to get the whole thing. If you can't handle it, I rather you don't even talk to me in the first place.

I look forward to a future where nobody cares about this stuff.

As with all interviews, you gotta do a little dance to get in, but they're not reflective of daily experience.

On the bright side, this is one of the things that stops the entire economy being swallowed up by a handful of megacorporations.

Despite end of the day praise and the acknowledgement that I'd be recommended for the next phase, not to mention a genuine rapport with the devs that sporadically popped in, the four letter firm acquired a software house and froze recruitment a week later.

I spent a day revealing tricks and patterns - something I charge a substantial daily rate - for nothing. But this is ridiculously common: the more effort required to interview the less likely I am to get the job.

Nowadays I'm happy to walk out of bullshit interviews where they ask open ended questions where only their answer is correct.

You get to a certain age/experience where it becomes apparent that a good interview is an informal session where you have a meeting of the minds not an adversarial grilling.

Most of the time you know nothing about the interview until someone asks you to give them a technical screening an hour before. There is also no formal process or seeming involvement from HR, it's just a, "is this person any good". From my experience it often comes down to, in order of importance: - Are they willing to be perm - Do they know what they are talking about - Will they fit in the team

The first one seems to be a trump card, even though most perms end up leaving before the contractors.

This brings me onto another point in which the best interview process is hiring someone as a consultant, and then converting them after a year or so if you are both happy to.

Unfortunately, this is also a "great" way to keep temp employees in constant limbo with the perm job as the carrot and stick. Usually, the temp job also leaves you with a lot less money (particularly because all the perks - insurance etc. - are reserved for proper employees) and, depending on the company, that's just all too attractive: A temp worker turning in work like a perm worker, always trying to "get there".

In context to the interview I was talking about the perm rate was half of the contract rates they were paying people on the same team.

As a contractor in the UK, you are likely not paying National Insurance contributions, are able to write off mileage and other expenses, can reduce your tax liability with dividends. Plus you'd still get access to the NHS.

I'm perm at the moment, but if I was a contractor I'd be saving a significant amount of money.

Honestly, quite surprised to hear its the other way around in the states. Here, contractors tend to laugh at the 'perks'... they're pretty much worthless.

    Note: after 25 minutes answering questions for a job you really
    want it’s kinda hard to shift to a question-asking mode.

Some I liked:

What does a typical day look like for you?

What projects do you work on?

How long have you been at $company? How has your role changed since then?

If I were hired for this role, what would my first day/week/month look like?

Is there anything about $company that some people really like, but others might dislike? (For example, having an open-plan office.)

What tools do you use on a regular basis?

I've seriously been asked by a candidate in an interview what our product was, and not just once. You took a day off work to come here and you couldn't even look at our website? On the other hand, I've had candidates who proactively identified some of the internal challenges we were currently dealing with "but how do you deal with X?" which is impressive.

More importantly, this decision to work at a company is going to have a bigger impact on the candidate than the hiring manager. People forget that the interview is a two way process. It's important to find out whether this company is going to be a place you will enjoy. Use questions as a way to figure out what the environment is like. Look for subtext in the answers.

This conversation is reminding me of why I washed out of the Bay Area high-tech scene. I was able to do it, but at too high a price. I'd rather work with slightly less smart people on much less shiny products, but living in a place where I can afford to buy a house, and with enough brainpower left over so that I don't have to live for my job.

It didn't help any that Be's heart was already broken by the time I got there. I don't think anybody really believed that the eVilla was going to be a success. But I could have overcome that problem, if I'd been smart.

Ultimately, I'm just not cut out to work in the rarified air that you work in. I can certainly see the appeal, though.

Many of the people who worked on that project ended up back together as part of the team that built Android: Dianne Hackborn, Jean Baptiste Queru, and many more (BeIA actually had a early version of Binder in it). Not immediately though: people who weathered the layoffs ended up being acquired by Palm. Mired in politics, I don't think the OS they built there ever shipped on any hardware, but, as I understand, many of the ideas from that project ended up in Android. The other big contingent of Be-ites, which I followed, went to Danger, which Andy Rubin had co-founded. After that flamed out, many people from there ended up at Android as well. I'm pleased to see Android's success, especially given the string of failures that many of the team members experienced over the prior 8+ years. Many people may not realize that.

To your other point: I periodically go running at lunch with a group that I work with. They are much more serious than I am and have been doing it longer. I'm not at all a great runner and fall behind pretty quickly. I don't aspire to be, and have no expectations I ever will. But I like to run with them because it motivates me to work harder and it's more fun with go with other people than by myself, even if it points out my shortcomings. Most people who seem smart just have spent a lot of time doing something. Personally, I think it's important not to be intimidated by people who you think are better at you than something. You're also probably better than you think. In those days I think was the type of interviewer everybody here is complaining about, so you probably did alright. :)

Yes, I am very aware of the post-Be trajectories of all you guys. I've been following you all since then. Almost nobody remembers Be anymore, but I still get mileage in job interviews out of having former coworkers on the Android team. (heh.)

I would say that my time at Be was a failure, but that it was also entirely my fault. I was often so intimidated by you guys that I was afraid to speak up. I would have gotten over it eventually, but not in that environment, what with our impending doom and periodic layoffs hanging over our heads. I didn't enjoy working on the eVilla, and I don't think I was alone in that respect. But I could have put my head down and performed a workmanlike job anyway, while cultivating contacts amongst all you guys who were dribbling out to bigger and better things. But I let my intimidation get in the way and made myself a liability.

I am well aware I could get back into the big leagues if I wanted to. I am a much better programmer now than I was then. I clawed my way in the first time, I could do it again. But I really don't think the Bay Area is for me. I recently bought a house for 180k that would have likely cost a million bucks out there. I am happy with my piddly little jobs in the B leagues where I don't have to try all that hard.

I guess I'm not as ambitious as I thought I was.

In general though, I'd avoid HR-related questions. They are almost always likely to generate a generic response, almost every candidate will ask similar questions, and they can easily be answered by your HR department contact.

The author got it right when he mentioned at the end that he was "talking to the people who implemented the original OSX UI". That's the sort of thing that would make me interested in working for you. Personally, I don't care about a company's 'interview process'. That's just filler crap they use to get people talking. I don't need help to get me talking about what I do. I'll answer questions, but as soon as I can, I'll be grilling you about all kinds of stuff. I'm in question-asking mode by default.

(That said, most of the people I've been interviewed by were devs, so this was not really ever an issue.)

Back to OP: I personally don't see myself working for a place that needs to talk to me for more than 1 hr before making a decision. If they take this long to decide on a hire, imagine how long and grueling are their technology decisions.

The thing about the process is one bad moment spoils the entire process for the candidate. Shallow/No responses, or horrible questions, or something unprofessional being said during the interview.

It's not just $AAPL it is everyone, but if you are an interviewer or a recruiter, please fight for the candidates to get good responses and good questions, especially if you fly someone across the globe to awkwardly sit in a room for 6 hours.

Even if you look at most MBA programs, the stuff on recruiting and interviewing aren't as research and evidence based as you would expect, and instead you just get spoon fed a bunch of best practices seemingly out of thin air.

I think programmers and technology companies in particular are very trend-following. For example, Microsoft decided to do some out-of-the-box questioning about circle manhole covers and suddenly tons of other companies had to have their own version. Google did CS algorithm questions, so everyone else had to have them also (even for jobs which use high level libraries like Java, C#, PHP, etc).

(I'm stretching, I know.)

It's great to see insight into interviews, in general, but that just left a weird bitter note to the article.

Luis might have very well been looking for work during this time, but by phrasing it as an outright monetary loss, he exaggerates his sacrifice and gives an appeal to the reader to condemn what Apple "did to him."I believe this is the reason also for the "700 Billion". Oh well. Sucks to be rejected. Natural reaction

I understand wanting to really vet someone first; but it really does seem kind of excessive how long these interview processes are becoming. It's not as if the author were applying for a Japanese salaryman (read: lifetime) employment position. Why not do a normal interview, bring them on as a contractor, see how it goes, and then make your final decision? It'd be a bit of a risk for the candidate if relocation were involved and remote work wasn't possible, but that would be on them.

I don't think it is. First of all, the hours aren't "lost", they are "cost of getting a job" - you don't interview without at least considering the possibility of not getting an offer. Anyone who expects to get a job after every interview they do is delusional. It's like the time you spend pitching your services to a client who then decides not to hire you - not "lost" time, but "cost of business".

If you're freelancing, then it's not that imaginary. You're giving up billable time.

It's just not realistic. Like the guy above you said, it comes down to time and I can sympathize with that. But to imagine you always have someone on hand right there willing to pay for your hours of work is where I am like "ok, wait, hold on."

In other words, just another unsuccessful interview, nothing unusual here, nor anything that Apple did badly or wrong.

One of the more painful things that I came across regularly was that we often had multiple great people go through the full interview process for a role, but could only hire one. Often 2-3 candidates could have done the job brilliantly, but we could only choose one. In that case, it tends to be really subtle things that shift the decision. (And this is where Google's Unconscious Bias training is vitally important - https://www.gv.com/lib/unconscious-bias-at-work)

It sounds like that situation may very well be the case here: lots of expense (both time/effort and $) and a long series of interviews, with a "no" at the end. (And in my experience those "no's" are often blunt, no matter how awesome a candidate is, for cover-your-ass/legal reasons.)

A lot of startups do still hire with a large company mindset, but I think they're making a big mistake.

Simply the process of getting approval for a job req and playing the required politics screws everything up. I've actually been pressured to hire someone just to hold onto the req at a large company, with the up-front, stated intention to fire the person in a month or two and keep looking.

Wow, that is seriously fked up. While I got pressure to hire (one role I hired for was very specific so it took a long time to find a candidate), as long as I was actively sourcing/interviewing people, I never got too much flak. You've got to keep a hiring bar high... and not screw people over!

However, each team has head counts for positions, and it's more or less up to them to hire for their own teams. It's certainly true that they may want exceptional generalists, but companies don't just hire people and then find a way to put them on a team. This wouldn't make sense for both the company or for the person involved, as someone who's more senior would generally have some sort of preference on what they want to work on.

My experience with interviewing at Microsoft and Google and working at Amazon is that basically a recruiter will try to find teams that might be interested in you and vice versa, and then you will interview with those teams. That being the case, you could get rejected by one team but then get accepted by another team. Or, even if you seem awesome, if none of the managers are interested, it's a no go. This also means that your success depends on how well your recruiter can sell you and find positions for you.

Tell me more about the skills shortage.

And indeed, if you had to go through all this it means they very seriously considered you for the position. Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit.

There's many reasons why someone would not be selected and sometimes it's just that people didn't "click" really.

I know that most of the time, recruiters word is "if you're not sure, better not hire than to make a mistake" and sometimes people who could have been accepted and made a positive contribution to the team get refused. There's even a bit of luck in that.

Thanks for sharing, though. I've never applied for Apple - albeit I guess engineering jobs get more tech stuff in the facetime interviews ;)

Then, there are relationships with colleagues and between employees regardless of performance, if you fire very rarely then your employees are happier, everyone's happier and performance is better.

Basically, you always take the smartest risk you can, and quite often, that means no hire when you're not too sure.

Please explain. I hear this a lot but it's never substantiated other than by vague references to employees being able to sue for being fired. Yes, some employees do sue, but there generally is no ground to do so, even when the employer has misbehaved. In my experience, it's actually incredibly easy and cheap to fire someone. You might lose a couple months' salary, but generally even that won't be a total loss as you're likely to get at least some decent work even out of a bad hire.

If there were indeed a shortage the practice would be reversed and companies would be willing to risk hiring unqualified workers in order never to miss the one candidate who can do the job.

But so long as there is a flood of less qualified workers along side a good number of skilled ones, the practice will continue or worsen.

What you get are a bunch of new hires who's only qualification over the not-hired is that they put on a good show for the interviewers. I'd say they are the best actors, but that doesn't cover those very good actors who make the mistake of playing the wrong part. Say you are willing to work through weekends to meet deadlines ... oops sorry, you guessed wrong. In this office that attitude is too competitive. We are going with those who guessed "no, weekends are for relaxing" and don't think you would get along with them.

The message this sends to current employees is also evil: if you don't fit in perfectly we don't want you. So everyone shows up to work in costume, wearing a mask, because they fear standing apart. Bring the wrong suit or express the wrong opinion and you might not "fit" anymore. We often hear about a lack of visible diversity in IT. How can we expect to achieve visible diversity if we cannot yet tolerate emotional and cultural diversity? Employees and prospective employees should be judged on on their work product, not on their ability to emotionally camouflage themselves.

Did Office Space teach us nothing?

There could be any number of reasons someone might not appear to "fit" on a given interview day, which wouldn't necessarily apply in them in the day-to-day - jet lag, the stress of the interview process, being under the weather and many more...

People and cultures adapt over time, through contact with each other; if you're denying good candidates because of their "fit" in the now, you're artificially limiting yourself for the future.

First, regarding the cultural fit: I think it's important that you share a similar mindset with the people who already work there. You'll get along better, and it is more productive. For example, if one person is much more assertive than another, and tends to get their way, we may miss out on the contributions of another. (A lot of very different examples here)

The second part: You're right, they can't give you a full personality quiz, but they're doing their best (oral communication and body language tell a lot more than having you fill in a quiz). They want to look for someone who fits in, so they bring you in and see if you do. What other way is there?

> ... best actors ...

I think if you intend to be an actor for the sake of a job, you're going to have a miserable time. Sure, I suppose this is the case if you value money more than satisfaction at you workplace. Which is where you'll make friends and spend a lot of your life, so I think you shouldn't, but that's subjective, so I concede this point.

> ... not fitting ...

This relates to the previous part in terms of priorities between just "getting the job" and "being happy with your job". As for the idea of not fitting in, I think it's too much of an exaggeration to think that people won't tolerate a few things here and there--but if you're entire view was different or fake to begin with, well maybe you didn't belong after all... you wouldn't be happy there anyway, so it's for the best.

Look at the space program. All those astronauts put on a good show. They look like they all play baseball together on weekends. In reality, they are bunch of very assertive and competitive Type-A personalities that, absent the overwhelming desire to fly into space, would rip each other to shreds. They get the job done because it is a job, not highschool.

For example I know a couple of tdd shops that have passed over quality candidates because the candidates don't think tdd is super awesome. I'd understand if the candidate refused to code in a tdd style but it's not even that.....

In theory that might be nice, in practice its ALWAYS implemented with a search and replace of mindset for gender, race, religion, orientation, parents socioeconomic class, political affiliation, random quirk of geography, etc. And how can you blame them, after all those are the primary determinants of mindset?

This is how in a diverse nation you end up with 100% brogrammer shops.

Id much rather work with an ahole that gets things done than someone I get along with that barely does anything to be honest.

Culture is also wether to be a perfectionist or to ship things now, even if they have bugs. To spend time sharing your knowledge with others or to document the code. To create a design or to quickly do what the customer wants. To generate comprehensive documentation, or to give personalised support. To tolerate brilliant aholes (hey, they are geniuses after all) or not.

All those things are different approaches to work, and being in places where the culture is different of your own can be a pain for both sides.

Funny thing: at country clubs, "culture fit" used to be a nice way of saying that we had better keep the Jews, Chinese, and Italians out, and that anyone darker-skinned than that will be automatically assumed to be an employee.

> It's a job, not a country club.

Yes, it's a job, but your ability to deliver on your work is not defined merely by private metrics like how fast you type, how many lines of code you can write a day, or even how knowledgeable and experienced you are about C++. Pretty much every job that you might apply to involves very large amounts of communication with your colleagues. When that communication breaks down (which it does even when you are a good culture fit), all sorts of elements come into play to help get things back on track. Also, when there is a need for rapid change (which there is on an almost daily basis in any company that's not on a straight path to the cemetery), communication and how well you gel with the rest of your team becomes the critical factor for how fast that change can happen.

"It's a job, not a computer game," I would reply. You can play your game by yourself with no interactions. Jobs require mature people who know how to communicate and behave in the target environment.

> What you get are a bunch of new hires who's only qualification over the not-hired is that they put on a good show for the interviewers. I'd say they are the best actors, but that doesn't cover those very good actors who make the mistake of playing the wrong part. Say you are willing to work through weekends to meet deadlines ... oops sorry, you guessed wrong. In this office that attitude is too competitive. We are going with those who guessed "no, weekends are for relaxing" and don't think you would get along with them.

If a company hires based on superficial answers like this, and thinks they're hiring based on culture fit, they're totally missing the point and they'll probably fail. Culture fit is at the same time far more subtle and far more concrete than this. Superficial features like whether you say that you're willing to work weekends or not are irrelevant. However, little and big details like how you walk down the street, whether you are open to someone questioning your ideas, whether you let someone else walk through the door first, whether you are a well rounded person with more to bring than just "I'm a great programmer", and, indeed, whether you recognise that you do want to work with people that you like and get along with, whether you you care about what kind of people you're going to be working with - individually those might be easy to fake, but as a whole, it's as hard to fake that general picture as it is to fake knowing about programming (to a programmer) when you're not a programmer. Even if you learn stuff by rote, details will slip.

> The message this sends to current employees is also evil: if you don't fit in perfectly we don't want you. So everyone shows up to work in costume, wearing a mask, because they fear standing apart. Bring the wrong suit or express the wrong opinion and you might not "fit" anymore. We often hear about a lack of visible diversity in IT. How can we expect to achieve visible diversity if we cannot yet tolerate emotional and cultural diversity?

That's the message, perhaps, if the company sending that message is totally stupid. Yes, culture fit matters, and yes, people can drift out of culture fit. But this is not something that happens suddenly, it happens over a long period. People don't suddenly come to work one day with a completely different outlook on how they want to behave at work. Obviously, if their definition of culture fit is based on childish, superficial details like whether you wear a suit, then yes, you'll get dumb behaviour from said companies.

My experience is that, quite unlike what you describe, organisations with culture fit enable people to stick out more. Because you know you're surrounded by relatively like-minded people, you tend to feel more comfortable being yourself. On the other hand, in an environment with a bland mix of employees with no consideration of culture fit, people tend to much more harshly punish people who stick out. Take a company like Zappos, which definitely cares about culture fit, and has as one of its explicit values "be weird", and compare the types of behaviours you see in that company to what you'd get somewhere like UBS or any typical traditional large corporate, which don't tend to care about culture fit, and you will easily see that people at Zappos tend to be much more willing to stick out - it's the ones working in the banks that have to wear masks all day.

> Employees and prospective employees should be judged on on their work product, not on their ability to emotionally camouflage themselves.

See above point - it's not about emotional camouflage, unless you're in a dumb company that doesn't understand the point of culture fit. It's about being emotionally intelligent and well matched to the people you'll be working with, so you feel comfortable being yourself around them, and don't have all this extra friction of working with people you don't really like or get along with.

> Did Office Space teach us nothing?

Yes, it taught us that the superficial understanding of culture you're describing can be implemented in horrible and somewhat comical (if you're not stuck in it) ways. It taught us that "pieces of flair" is a terrible way to measure enthusiasm, that "hawaiian shirt day" is ridiculous, that bland cultures generate zero loyalty or wellbeing, that culture, or lack thereof, can be a ruthlessly efficient demotivator.

In other words, it taught us that actual culture fit really does matter.

Yes, and the ability to communicate well with people who are culturally different is incredibly important.

Trying to find someone who has the same cultural fit as the interviewers is counterproductive unless your company is tiny or there is no mobility.

At my current company:

- We have close to 20% turnover and 10% growth in our software division.

- We have over 25 developers in our division.

- Developers frequently need to interact with the business arm, with the sales arm, and with the customer support arm. They all have significantly different cultures.

- Our clients have different cultures and as an "agile shop" our developers deal directly with them.

Getting along with the 4 people who interview you means next to nothing in light of the above.

I want people who can get behind our vision, who are good at their work, and who can get along with people whom they might not be best friends with outside of work.

- Sometimes, a "No" means "we like your career trajectory; we've identified you as a candidate that we want to follow up with in ~6 months".

- Sometimes, a "No" means "we really like you; we think you'd be a fit here, we'll be constructing this team in ~6 months".

- Sometimes, a "No" means "we wont relocate; we wont fly you out here; we're only considering local (e.g. Bay Area) candidates".

- Sometimes, a "No" means that it's up to you to reflect on the situation. Take as many notes as you can during the process. Analyze what you said, wrote, acted, etc. It's up to you to determine how you could be better.

- When you get to the on-site and have the opportunity to learn a lot more, things might not be all ponies and rainbows like you'd imagine. Be open to what you didn't want to see, hear, or learn about. You might learn that you actually don't want to work here.

- You're racing against the clock. Balance is key. You hear advice about asking clarification questions, discussing trade-offs, etc. but at the end of the hour one of the most important things is the code you put up on that board. The interviewer will likely whip out their phone, take a pic, and that's that.

- Coding on a whiteboard, with a stranger, in an unfamiliar environment, after traveling many miles... is... challenging. Without much practice, you're at risk to fall flat on your face--I've face-planted my fair share, and it's always fuel to get back at it again.

- Interview as much as you possibly can. You learn about companies, people, technology, industry, challenges, etc. Practice, practice, practice.

- Sometimes, recruiters reach out to you for an initial call (you're excited), and then you learn that members of the hiring team haven't even seen your resume (orly? u think i haz de skillz dear rekrooter?). You then never hear back from the recruiter, or receive an email stating that they're not moving forward. I've only had a couple of these, but it's enough for me to strongly dislike contact before any member of the hiring team has reviewed my qualifications.

They have nothing to gain by explaining and plenty to lose if they say something stupid.

I've certainly interviewed and didn't get offered a job. It stings, even when I knew I wasn't the best fit. It's natural to feel some bitterness.

Despite the headlines, market cap, cache of the name of the company on your CV, how can't you have as many questions coming up to put at them as they have for you?

The only time I've been turned down for a job that looked like it could have "dream job" aspirations to it, I had to say that 1) I totally knew and agreed with why they were declining and 2) felt they knew exactly why I would not likely feel comfortable coming in with them in a way that fits just right.

You should be seeking out, within reason, what day 1, month 1, and year 1 are going to be like. You should be seeing how they fit into your life path as much as they are seeing how you are going to get them through the issues that made the added headcount necessary.

What OP left me with, literally, was "I'm not a dummy b/c they brought me in." It's such a dry, objective review that it makes me think they were along for the ride instead of taking the wheel. It could well be just a personality-based thing. The OP has an apparently sterile passion for design and/in documentation.

Interviewers love passion and resonance - or at least they should at some place you really want to be. Nobody should have to pry things out of you. And then, they want to be able to agree with you and your view on technical passions and interpersonal rapport. Are you hard-working, objectively talented, opinionated-but-open, and do you seem ready and able to complement or enhance them?

I imagine that companies with such processes only get candidates that are extremely compliant and lack self-esteem. Because most people I know would politely tell the employer to go f themselves after the 3rd screening call.

Are these long drawn out, humiliating application processes typically American or does this happen in other countries as well?

It happens in other countries too. It is really more a symptom of company size than company nationality. The mega-corps all tend to do shit like this.

I always call my candidates and ask one simple question when they don't get the job and after I tell them they won't be getting the job: do you want the usual HR rejection reason as in "you don't fit the profile we are looking for" or "we have a candidate that better fits the business need," or do you want me to give you 3 suggestions on how you could have done better? If the latter (they always want feedback, don't we all?) then I go into very specific behaviors. The majority of these tend to fall in two camps: you did not prepare for the interview, or you did not demonstrate a specific skill or experience and this is how I think you can get it.

100% of the people I have given feedback have never come back to sue my company or me for rejecting them. Many have followed me and one has actually followed me, interviewed at another place I went, and got the job then.

Regarding the article, yea, seems pretty standard. Sorry you didn't get the job

1. OP wanted to emphasize what it is like to interview at a company which has a lot of resources to invest into interviews - one of the things mentioned was committing multiple people for a full day to just interview him, as well as willing to bear a high initial cost (travel, hotel) to interview him.

2. OP wanted to detail the interview process of such a financially successful company: who they hire, why they hire that person, how they find and select candidates that have contributed to that high financial success.

3. OP wanted a crafty title beyond "My interview at Apple"

4. More likely to be clicked on, shared, commented or voted on (i.e clickbait).

In the end I didn't get an offer, with a one liner explanation.

I was grateful that they even gave me a chance and hold no hard feeling against them BUT I'm pissed about the waste, on my and their part. On the days I had the interviews, I wasn't productive at all as I spent time preparing, managing my nervousness (pacing around), and decompressing after interview. Those are a few days I won't get back. Even without putting monetary value on it, I think all can agree it is a big waste.

After all that, all I got was a stinking one liner explanation, that I wasn't a good fit. What was the tech test for?

One person on the team I talked to seemed as if he hadn't seen my resume until the interview time. He was going down my resume and asking questions and I could tell that it was his first time reading it. And I also feel that was the person that gave thumbs down.

I hope their accounting knows that 1 person cost the COMPANY nearly 6 man hours of their employees, for nothing.

EDIT: From what I've seen previous jobs, managers and team members are asked to interview the candidate, not necessarily say yes/no based on the resume alone.

Not that anyone will listen but I think it would help if HR asked managers/team-members to give up/down on each resume before calling in for interview. If enough give down, don't call in for interview. Save time for all.

This is a really cool way to sum up the article.

(the question of whether companies actually need employees of that caliber for building mobile apps is a entirely different one)

Sure, pushing pixels around is easy, but when you're up against a deadline and the app is crashing in a subtle way, you need engineers who have solid debugging chops. Not everybody does.