Apple Interview Guide

Apple is the least standardised loop of the big five. The team you interview with matters more than the company: one team runs a Google-shaped algorithm ladder, the next spends most of the time on systems and low-level detail, and a third asks mostly about your past work. There is no single Apple interview to prepare for.

The practical consequence is that research the team, not just the company. Ask your recruiter what the loop looks like and what the team builds — that question is expected here and the answer changes what you should revise.

Crowd-reported, not published

No company publishes its question bank. The round structure and the bar below are corroborated by recruiters and candidates; the problem list is crowd-reported, stale, and biased toward whoever posted it. Treat the pattern families as the durable signal — which families a company leans on changes far more slowly than which individual problems it uses.

The least standardised process of the five — the team you are interviewing with matters more than the company. Some teams run classic algorithms, others run domain-specific systems questions.

The loop

Recruiter + hiring manager 1-2× · 30-45 min Fit and domain background

Technical 3-5× · 45-60 min Varies sharply by team; often language internals plus algorithms

Cross-functional 1-2× · 45 min Collaboration with adjacent teams

The bar

Ask the recruiter what the team's interviews actually cover — at Apple that question gets a real answer, and preparing for the wrong thing is the main failure mode.

What they lean on

This is the durable part. Which pattern families a company favours is far more stable than which individual problems it uses, so prepare in this order:

1. linked-lists
2. strings
3. design-iterators-and-flatteners
4. bit-manipulation-tricks
5. binary-search-template-and-variants
6. simulation-and-stateful-iteration

Quirks worth knowing

• Language and memory-model internals come up more than at other companies. Be ready to discuss how Python objects are laid out.
• Some teams ask no LeetCode at all and go straight to domain design. Others are pure algorithms. Confirm in advance.
• Secrecy is real — expect little detail about what you would work on until late in the process.

Reported problems

Read this before you trust the list. No company publishes its question bank. Every "asked at Apple" list in circulation — including this one — is aggregated from candidate reports, is months to years out of date, and over-represents whoever bothered to post. Use it to choose an order to practise in. Do not use it as a question bank, and do not assume a problem missing from it is safe to skip. The list below is currently derived from Apple's pattern families rather than from per-problem tags, which is the more honest basis while the tag data is thin.

44 problems

17 easy23 medium4 hard

AllEasyMediumHard

Unsolved onlyExportImportReset

• ○206Reverse Linked ListeasyNeetCode 150Blind 75
• ○21Merge Two Sorted ListseasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○141Linked List CycleeasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○242Valid AnagrameasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○13Roman to IntegereasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○14Longest Common PrefixeasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○35Search Insert PositioneasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○58Length of Last WordeasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○67Add BinaryeasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○125Valid PalindromeeasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○136Single NumbereasyNeetCode 150LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○169Majority ElementeasyLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○190Reverse BitseasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○191Number of 1 BitseasyNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○338Counting BitseasyNeetCode 150Blind 75
• ○657Robot Return to Origineasy
• ○704Binary SearcheasyNeetCode 150
• ○33Search in Rotated Sorted ArraymediumNeetCode 150Blind 75LeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○875Koko Eating BananasmediumNeetCode 150
• ○6Zigzag ConversionmediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○12Integer to RomanmediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○34Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted ArraymediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○78SubsetsmediumNeetCode 150
• ○137Single Number IImediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○151Reverse Words in a StringmediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○173Binary Search Tree IteratormediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○201Bitwise AND of Numbers RangemediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○251Flatten 2D Vectorpremiummedium
• ○271Encode and Decode StringspremiummediumNeetCode 150Blind 75
• ○274H-IndexmediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○284Peeking Iteratormedium
• ○289Game of LifemediumLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○341Flatten Nested List Iteratormedium
• ○371Sum of Two IntegersmediumNeetCode 150Blind 75
• ○421Maximum XOR of Two Numbers in an Arraymedium
• ○874Walking Robot Simulationmedium
• ○900RLE Iteratormedium
• ○981Time Based Key-Value StoremediumNeetCode 150
• ○1041Robot Bounded In Circlemedium
• ○1586Binary Search Tree Iterator IIpremiummedium
• ○68Text JustificationhardLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○135CandyhardLeetCode Top Interview 150
• ○600Non-negative Integers without Consecutive Oneshard
• ○1483Kth Ancestor of a Tree Nodehard

Pitfalls

• Preparing a generic big-tech loop. Ask the recruiter for the round breakdown. Apple recruiters generally answer, and the variance between teams is large enough that guessing wastes preparation.
• Neglecting depth on your own past work. Several teams weight this heavily. Be able to go three questions deep on anything on your CV, including the parts you would rather skip.
• Assuming no low-level questions. Depending on the team, memory layout, concurrency, or performance detail can appear. Know why a list is not a linked list and what that costs.
• Expecting a public, consistent bar. Apple publishes less and leaks less than its peers, so crowd-sourced lists are thinner and staler here than for any other company on this page.

Interview follow-ups

They ask	What they’re checking	The answer
“Tell me about this project on your CV.”	Depth, and whether you actually did it	Go deep voluntarily: the design decision you would now reverse, the trade-off you got wrong, the constraint that shaped it. Three questions deep is the expected floor.
“Why did you choose that data structure?”	Whether the choice was reasoned or inherited	Name the operation profile you needed and the alternative you rejected. “It was already there” is an honest answer only if you follow it with what you would use now.
“How much memory does that use?”	Low-level awareness, on some teams	Be concrete about Python’s overhead: a list of a million ints is tens of MB — pointers plus boxed objects — not 4 MB.
“What does this team build?” (you asking)	Whether you did the research	Ask it of the recruiter before the loop. Expected here, and the answer tells you which of the three Apple loops you are getting.

Recall card

• The team matters more than the company. There is no single Apple loop.
• Ask the recruiter for the round breakdown. Expected, usually answered, and it redirects your preparation.
• Be ready to go three questions deep on your own CV — including the parts you would rather skip.
• Low-level questions appear on some teams — memory layout, concurrency, performance detail.
• Crowd-sourced lists are thinnest here. Weight the pattern families over the problem list more than usual.