Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 99 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

#71

Post by cosbynator »

bryanallen22 wrote: post #64
jaysonelliot wrote: post #49

I interviewed with Apple last year, and I wasn't asked to sign an NDA. That said, I didn't actually see anything that would have required one. I didn't apply to Apple - they found me. A year later, I'm still not sure how that happened, since I don't know anyone there. It could have been through a public talk about user experience that I gave (the position was for UX director of the Apple web site), it might have been…

My experiences were similar. I had several interviews with Apple: 1) Several phone interviews for an internship. They don't do fly outs for internships, if I remember correctly. I never finished this process because I took another position before the interviews were complete. 2) Phone interviews and fly out for a position about 1 year ago. The team had good things to say about me, but it wasn't a good fit for either…

I had an on-campus interview for an internship years ago that contrasts this a bit. It was about 30 minutes and there was no second interview. There were absolutely no technical questions. I was asked about whether I had experience with Apple products and development and the interviewer wasn't too offended when I said no. Absolutely no coding. The interviewer didn't seem to really care about the job description that was posted.

I was asked about some problem solving I had to do at a previous internship and I talked about how setjmp/longjmp saved my skin once. The interviewer seemed more pleased in the fact that I was excited about the solution than the fact that I had one.

Unlike you, I found it refreshing. I got the impression that they cared more about passion than obscure technical answers. In the end, I took another offer instead but it was a difficult decision to make.

Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

#72

Post by funkah »

adamtj wrote: post #38

Whether it's intentional or coincidence, it's interesting how it parallels their products. There are approximately three people who work for Apple. They are the shiny, slick interface. Everything else is an implementation detail. Jonathan Ive is like OS X. Nobody knows how OS X actually works, but they know the name and that it is why their screen shows such pretty things.

What makes you say nobody knows how OS X actually works? The developer documents aren't a big batch of jokes, they describe how the system works. Also take a look at "Mac OS X Internals" by Amit Singh, there's more about the inner workings of OS X there than you could ever possibly care to know.

Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

#76

Post by nostrademons »

dawsdesign wrote: post #11
revorad wrote: post #9

There's enough talk here about Apple, maybe not about working or interviewing there, but honestly there's just way too much talk about big companies on HN already; we don't need more. What's the point of this meta thread anyway? Are you planning to work at Apple? If so, why don't you just ask specific direct questions about that? Flagged for zero content.

Sounds like personal preference. This site is for natural selection. If people are interested in it then it will get voted up. Voted Up because I've often wondered it myself

It's kinda interesting, though, that when this site was founded almost 4 years ago, everything was about "What's it like to work for a startup?" And now, everything is apparently "What's it like to work for Google/Facebook/Apple?"

I wonder if that's a symptom of HN's widening userbase, or if it's a sign of the times. Back in 2007, the startup market was very glutted, and a lot of people (including myself) were founding companies who probably should not have been. Now, it seems like every top developer's dream is to work for one of the Big 3. I wonder if that's a sign that it's time to start founding companies again.

Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

#78

Post by madridorama »

i have a friend that works at apple, and other than providing a vague job description and saying they like it, they don't discuss details.

i think it's the culture, your work speaks for itself. he puts in long hours (on par with goog really) and has a great salary and perks.

Re: Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Apple?

#80

Post by Remccainjr »

KuraFire wrote: post #31
mmatey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok this is the answer I was looking for - but a bit unexpected. I can certainly understand an NDA for working there, but interviewing? ok... As for comments farther down, it's a case of curiosity like I said - corporate/company culture, not their products. I think that's relative no matter what the company size is.

Imagine interviewing for a job position as baseband engineer in 2006. Apple had no iPhone in the market, why would they have needed a baseband engineer? Even a simple interview can sometimes reveal a lot about their product plans, hence the need for NDAs just for that early process.

I would think there would be some misdirection involved with the interview process anyhow.

... Apple interviewed a baseband engineer, nuclear physicist and a satellite communications engineer last month... This month they are asking for quotes for satellite launch... WTF is Apple up to?

Post reply on HN