I had applied for the Camera Hardware Engineer role but was instead approached for this one. There was an initial phone interview with HR that lasted 15 minutes.

Then, a scheduled Skype interview two weeks later, where the interviewer asked me questions designed to give him insight into my style of thinking. He presented real-life problem situations and asked me to use my engineering knowledge and out-of-the-box thinking to find ways to solve them. That went well for me.

Next, I was scheduled for full-round interviews at the Cupertino HQ with six interviewers from varied backgrounds, each lasting 45 minutes, one after the other. The specializations included:

• Mechanical
• Camera Hardware
• Electrical
• Process Engineering
• Solid Mechanics

The questions were a deep dive into my resume and into Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.

As I went through the interviews that day, I knew I wasn't answering some of the questions to their expectations. As expected, I received an email from the recruiter after a week stating they were not moving forward with my application, as they couldn't find me to be the right technical fit.

It was disappointing since I had prepared well. I knew where I went wrong, and I'm not planning on repeating the same mistakes again. If you're interviewing with Apple, you better know your trade well!

1. What ways can you increase the damping in a camera actuator mechanism?

2. Draw a voltage divider bias circuit and derive the output voltage.

3. Give some examples of MEMS devices that fail by ESD/EOS failure mechanisms.

4. Why can't an airplane fly into outer space?

5. Cantilever beam: what point of application of force will cause the earliest failure?

6. How would you model a torque force in a FEA model?