My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

I feel the same way.

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 have similar work experience (though no patents or start-up success credentials). I did run the Google interview gauntlet (unsuccessfully - so far) over the last year.

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.

Maybe they intentionally asked you an impossible question that is not obviously unsolveable to see how you react when given and how you approach hard problems.

Every interviewer wants you to let the guard down and show them the real you. We know the version of you that comes to our interview will be copacetic, genial, nice, friendly, etc. by default. Our biggest task in most of these interviews isn't necessarily ascertaining whether you can develop software -- hopefully that's borne out of some pretty straightforward questioning.

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.

Unfortunately, laws make it really difficult to provide candid feedback to candidates in the US.

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.