Zack got an offer as a Site Reliability Engineer at Apple

Name Zack D

New Position Site Reliability Engineer ICT3 at Apple

Location Seattle

Date of Offer June 2024

Coaching Sessions 4

What most excites you about your new job?

Contributing to products that millions of people use daily

Where were you previously?

Amazon

Roughly how much preparation did you do for the whole interview process?

I studied 1-4 hours daily across 4 months.

How did you prepare? What was your step-by-step strategy?

At a minimum, I reviewed my Anki notecards that were due every day. After that, I did at least one LeetCode problem per day as well. On top of this, I researched specific interview questions and dug deep into the topics of the questions I wasn't already familiar with. For research, I referenced YouTube videos, commonly recommended books, and ChatGPT. I then transcribed everything to Anki notecards for later review.

What was the hardest part of the whole interview process?

Just being patient. Apple recruiters are notoriously flakey and my experience left a lot to be desired. The process was delayed multiple times and timelines were miscommunicated. Many times I wondered if I would be ghosted.

Did any of the interview questions stand out?

I had a situation when I needed to troubleshoot a Linux system where I could not create new processes.

Do you have any final tips for other candidates?

There's no such thing as too much prep.