The phone interview with the senior engineer and manager included several technical and supplier management questions. I answered every question, much to my surprise, achieving a 100% score. The senior engineer was so excited that, at the end of the conversation, he said he would recommend me highly. A few days later, I received a message requesting an on-site interview.

The first on-site interview mostly involved meeting with engineers, the manager, and one of the director-level managers.

A few days after my on-site interview, HR called and said they wanted me to work on a design presentation. It consisted of five pages of typed technical questions, two design problems, and a third part requesting a portfolio of my past engineering work. I spent four long days preparing everything they requested. After submitting the 30 pages, the engineer scheduled a teleconference to go through the presentation. We went line by line. One question out of the five pages I did not answer closely enough, even though I had a correct answer. On the design projects, they were impressed with my "out-of-the-box" (his words) and clear thought approach.

A few weeks passed, and I heard nothing. I thought I had completed everything they asked for with at least 98% accuracy and had impressed them with my design ability. I sent the HR person an email asking if they had made a decision. I didn't hear anything for another week, and then they said they wanted me for a second on-site interview with upper management. I was excited.

On the second on-site interview, I remember walking up the stairs with the HR manager and saying to her that the Apple process is really different. She replied, "We try to explain well about the Apple interview process." I wanted to say something at that point because I would like to know at what point she had ever explained anything about the interview process. In fact, they will not confirm the interview plan until the day before the interview. They will not let you know who you will meet until you arrive for the interview. They will not even give you the schedule for the day for reference.

Now, for the second on-site interview with upper management. The first interviewer was 20 minutes late because he had to drop off his kids at school. I was thinking that if it was 9:30 when he was supposed to be there, he should have been able to make it on time, especially for an interview. I had spent a lot of time preparing and arrived early. The next interview was with a VP who had an attitude. He only asked two questions. One was why it took me 3 years to get my master's degree 20 years ago. I explained I was going part-time while working as an engineer at the time. Wow, I didn't know that mattered that long ago. All his other questions focused on his paranoia about whether I might be a security issue for Apple. Good work, VP; you are really going to find creative people for new products with your approach.

The third interviewer also arrived late. Once he arrived, he sat there for a little while trying to think of questions to ask and then said he was filling in for another person who was supposed to be there. He spent the next 15 minutes texting the person who was supposed to be there. Then, after a while, the person he was texting showed up. That person then sat there trying to gather himself and asked me two questions that must be standard, as previous interviewers had asked me the exact same questions. For the remaining time, I just tried to keep the conversation going.

The next interview was with a director-level manager, and the first thing he asked was what the VP had asked me. I went over the questions, and he proudly said that he and the VP think alike. All I could think was, "Great, here we go again." He had more questions, at least, but spent a lot of time going over security concerns at Apple. One thing I did learn is that they don’t even let the iPod, iPad, and iPhone engineers interact to ensure secrecy and internal product competitiveness.

OK, I finally thought I was done and that all that was left was to wait for a decision. A week went by with no idea whether it was a yes or no. Then I received an email saying that the person who had a replacement come in his place later arrived for the interview and couldn't think of questions needed to interview me again. So I said, "Fine, schedule it as soon as possible." Another week went by, and I didn't hear anything. So I asked the HR person. Apparently, that person was now in China getting ready for the iPhone 5 launch. Another two weeks went by. By this time, I had given up on Apple. Then one day, out of the blue, they said they were going to offer me the job. I declined, as I had another job offer at the management level, and I was annoyed with Apple's interview process.

Actually, all of the questions were standard interview questions that any company would ask. That surprised me; I was expecting more "brainpower" questions.

The only challenges were the number of people to interview and how unorganized the process was. The biggest challenges were all the waiting and the amount of work requested for the design project.

It was a horrific waste of time for both me and Apple.