Apple SDE 2 interview

The SDE 2 rounds, in order

1. 1

   Hiring manager · 30 min

   After a short recruiter call, the hiring manager often does a technical deep dive on your past projects and asks 'Why Apple?'; some teams start with this call.

   At SDE 2: Ownership of features, handling production issues, working with product and other teams.

2. 2

   Phone / recruiter screen · 45 min

   One or two live coding screens, usually medium or a domain task such as a thread-safe cache; some teams use a take-home instead or as well.

   At SDE 2: One or two problems, a little faster. Some companies mix in a design question.

3. 3

   Coding (DSA) × 3 · 50 min

   Coding rounds focus on edge cases, defensive code and often concurrency, in the language the team uses (Swift, C++, Python, Java, Go).

   At SDE 2: Two or three rounds at medium to hard level. You are expected to reach the optimal approach with fewer hints and to test without being asked.

4. 4

   Low-level design / machine coding · 60 min

   Object-oriented or component design such as a contact search system or a memory-efficient image decoder, mostly for junior and mid-level roles.

   At SDE 2: The core round at many product companies: working, modular, extensible code with validation, error handling and tests, finished on time.

5. 5

   System design (HLD) · 60 min

   System design for mid and senior roles, often from a product angle (photo sync, push notifications); some teams now add an AI system design round.

   At SDE 2: Present at most companies. A sound end-to-end design with sensible components and basic scaling is enough.

6. 6

   Team-specific round · 60 min

   A team-specific round: finding planted bugs in a large unfamiliar file, tracing a failing service, a project presentation, or SQL for data-heavy roles.

   At SDE 2: Debugging, integration or code review rounds at product companies.

7. 7

   Behavioral · 45 min

   Conflict, failure, decisions with limited information and caring about the user; 'Why Apple?' can come up in any round.

   At SDE 2: Stories should show you owning features end to end and handling conflict maturely.

8. 8

   Team match

   You interview for a specific team, so a calibration step can add weeks, and an offer still depends on headcount.

   At SDE 2: Committees can down-level you instead of rejecting.

What Apple interviewers look for

• Deep, honest command of your own past projects and decisions
• A specific 'Why Apple?' and feel for the product
• Edge-case handling and defensive, production-quality code
• Concurrency and memory awareness
• Depth in the team's language and domain
• Ownership and working through ambiguity across teams

Coding questions to practise for Apple SDE 2

Two or three rounds at medium to hard level. You are expected to reach the optimal approach with fewer hints and to test without being asked.

How the coding round is scored · The online assessment

System design at SDE 2

Junior and mid-level loops lean toward LLD and object-oriented design; system design starts around ICT3/ICT4 and goes deeper at ICT5+. Prompts often tie to Apple services (photo sync, messaging, push notifications) or the team's own infrastructure.

• Google Drive
• WhatsApp
• Notification system
• Movie booking
• Web crawler

All Apple system design questions

Questions people ask