I was contacted by an Apple recruiter letting me know that they were looking for mechanical engineers for their product development team. A phone interview was scheduled by another recruiter (this recruiter was assigned to be my contact). The person on the phone was very nice and asked very relevant questions that took place in the job description. The only downside of the phone interview was that he had to take a break in between because he was needed for an urgent meeting. We resumed the same day in half and hour or so. I got an email a few days later from my assigned recruiter saying that the phone interview was success and I was invited for onsite interview. The travel and accommodation arrangements were handled through an online system. 1-2 weeks prior to the onsite interview, all candidates are asked to prepare a design challenge. My challenge was to create a 2 AA battery holder with a pop-open mechanism. The key aspects they wanted in the design was also noted on the problem description (FBDs, FMEA, Material Selection, etc). I had 6 1-1 interviews, 45 mins each with a 1hr lunch break with another employee, adding to 7. I was asked questions related to: - heat transfer (3x): know conduction, convection and thermodynamics basics as it relates to enclosure design. - Injection molding: define key features, where gate was, how the mold worked. - material selection: aluminum vs. steel, which one has higher UTS under a bending problem, looking at an existing part describe what material it is. - statics: draw FBDs on the questions posed by the interviewee - root cause analysis: describe where you'd start solving a problem - design methodology: walk me through your thought process to design given question. After the 1-1 meetings, I was asked to present my design challenge work to a group of product design engineers in a separate conference room. Most of the interviewees that I met throughout the day was there with the addition of a few more engineers. It was an interactive environment, expect to receive questions throughout the presentation and be ready to go on the board and explain everything you say. Be ready to defend all your design selections but also make room for criticism that you'll receive. My experience didn't go very well, I didn't find enough time to get ready for my interview, so I advice you to think through before going in to the deteails of your presentation. Make sure that you design something that you're proud of and know all aspects of it.

The interview went well overall. The interviewer opened with a discussion about a project I'm proud of, then a beam scenario question that covered structural and load analysis, stress and deflection, and material selection — testing my ability to connect first-principles thinking across the full problem space.