I applied through an employee referral.

This was a highly technical interview process. Be prepared for a lot of questions on heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and thermodynamics. Overall, I would rate the technical difficulty as average—not particularly difficult, but certainly thorough.

What stood out to me, however, was the attitude of some of the interviewers. In my view, the interview process says a lot about the culture of both the team and the company. There were five interview rounds in total.

• Three of them were professional, technical, and fair, and I felt I handled them well.
• The other two were much more challenging, not because of the technical content, but because the interviewers seemed intent on pushing candidates into a corner.

They kept asking question after question until they found something I could not answer. Many of those questions focused on specific Apple products. Am I expected to know the detailed thermal engineering design of Apple's products? I do not think that is a reasonable expectation for most candidates.

I do not see any value in deliberately making interviewees uncomfortable. Interviews are already stressful environments, and a good interviewer should be able to assess technical competence without creating unnecessary pressure.

That said, the experience helped me realize that this was not a team I would have enjoyed working with. In hindsight, not receiving an offer turned out to be the right outcome. I continued interviewing elsewhere and am now a happy employee at another FAANG company.

Choose an Apple product and explain how its thermal management system would work?