I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Apple in Feb 2016
Interview
I was contacted by a recruiter via LinkedIn. The recruiter asked to have a phone conversation to generally find out whether the position would be a good fit. Very broad and high level discussion. After speaking with the recruiter I was told that arrangements would be made to speak with the hiring manager on the phone for a more technical interview.
The phone interview with the hiring manager consisted of coding and technical question Q&A. The coding part was first. The manager also wanted to ask questions about data structures. The technical question part consisted of theoretical questions regarding machine learning and approaches towards solving computer vision problems. No questions were asked regarding specifics on my resume.
The expectation was to write code in C++.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you have a sorted set of numbers, write a function that returns the position(s) of an input number
How would you develop a face recognition algorithm to recognize faces that are at a resolution less than 30x30 pixels?
How would you develop a face recognition algorithm to mitigate pose and illumination variances?
What are the advantages of a Support Vector Machine classifier?
What is a kernel function in a Support Vector Machine?
What is the difference between backpropagation and gradient descent?
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Nov 2013
Interview
I have applied through an employee referral. After one phone screening interview with the hiring manager I was invited to full day onsite interview. I've received a one-time code to Apple Travel system and ordered flight tickets, hotel room and rented a car. All the process was very smooth and fast. The interviewers were smart and pleasant. However, I didn't do well. There were many Machine Learning questions, which I had no experience with, and I've tried to answer them without mentioning the lack of experience (not a good strategy). After the interview they didn't bother to tell me that I failed until I explicitly asked them two weeks later.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the question you wanted us to ask you and we didn't ask yet.