Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Apple

      Engaged employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay and benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Apple reviews | Apple jobs | Apple salaries | Apple benefits | Apple conversations
      Apple interviewsApple Mechanical Design Engineer interviewsApple interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Centre
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy and Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Glassdoor LLC. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls" and logo are proprietary trademarks of Glassdoor LLC.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalised job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Mechanical Design Engineer Interview

      Dec 31, 2013
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Cupertino, CA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Dec 2013

      Interview

      Process: I was not job hunting. I was recruited through linkedin. I figured it was an opportunity I couldn't ignore. I submitted a resume, cover letter, and sample work. They put me in contact with a hiring manager. I had a 30 minute phone interview with him. It was very basic screening (salary, willing to move, willing to travel, etc). I was referred to the actual manager for the position who set up a technical phone interview (I lived cross country). He canceled once and rescheduled for two weeks later. Then he moved the meeting time back a couple of hours on the day of. The technical interview was appropriate to ensure I was qualified for the position. I had to answer several questions building on each other regarding engineering (materials, design decisions, etc). We briefly reviewed some of my sample work too. The interviewer was late on the call and had to hang up at one point to call another interviewee who was scheduled after me to tell them that he'd be late. He called me back to finish up. There were no questions about me as a person. He was only concerned with my engineering skills. He also left me almost no time to ask questions. At the end of the interview he told me he wanted to bring me in for an on-site interview. Later, the recruiter told me 1 in 6 or 7 people get past the phone interview. I received an email that evening with a design challenge. The concept was to test drive my skills with a basic engineering problem that they give all interviewees (for benchmarking). I had one week to submit drawings, analysis, and CAD. I submitted my work and was supposed to received feedback but never did. People spends hours and hours on these submissions. Its critical. The onsite interview was scheduled as two days. The first day was several hours of continuous meetings with various engineers including one over lunch. The second day was supposed to be a review of my design submission. Opinion: I did not like the interview process. Trying to be objective, it was one directional, impersonal and poorly executed. It would be more accurate to call the process a test and not an interview. Perhaps, they have so much demand that they can get away with it. I was left in a conference room with an itinerary and people came and went over several hours. There was no oversight. I was left alone for 30 minutes at one point. I felt the majority of interviewers were unprepared, not engaged, and uninterested with anything other than technical questions. Perhaps they were all under a deadline. A number of them showed up late and others just glanced at my resume or sample work for the first time in the meeting. Half of them had a stock question that they asked and everything hinged on your answer to that which is fine with me. But, I also felt that they were looking for a specific answer and not anything creative nor did they have the patience to let you work out the solution. A lot of them were good people and good engineers but I was also turned off by the general attitude of superiority carried by the employees I met. I just didn't vibe with that. I prefer casual creative collaboration. Obviously, it didn't work out. Neither side felt it was a fit. I didn't feel like the experience would have given me enough insight about working there to decide to move cross country. Cupertino left a lot to be desired. The offices were less impressive than I was expecting but I didn't get a tour either. I know they are building a new state of the art facility. Apple was very generous with their accommodations. Money is not a concern for them. I come from smaller work environments so a company of 50,000 going on 85,000 was too big of a leap.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      1. Engineering cantilever beam question on phone interview 2. Ipod battery door design challenge 3. Show me the hardest problem you ever solved.
      1 Answer
      15

      Other Mechanical Design Engineer interview reviews for Apple

      Mechanical Design Engineer Interview

      Apr 22, 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Shanghai, Shanghai
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Apple (Shanghai, Shanghai) in Apr 2026

      Interview

      All interviewer are quite friendly, they asked question based on your resume, and elaborate from there, so make sure you know every single details you wrote in your resume, they asked more on behavioral question, and a few technical questions.

      Mechanical Design Engineer Interview

      Nov 30, 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Kānpur, Uttar Pradesh
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied through university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Apple (Kānpur, Uttar Pradesh) in Nov 2025

      Interview

      campus recruitment, only 15 students got shortlisted for the case study round, then 4 were selected for interview, we had to write on paper and they evaluated that for the interview shortlisting

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      we were asked on the original walking cam based walking beam and about drawing the FBD, moment and torsion and deflection diagrams plus also questions on what material to select and what calculations to do to ensure the mechanism is robust
      Answer question

      Mechanical Design Engineer Interview

      May 29, 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      San Diego, CA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Apple (San Diego, CA) in Aug 2025

      Interview

      After 12 rounds of interviews, while I was told verbally that I was getting an offer, they suddenly asked for 3 more rounds of interviews and said I was not a good fit without any explanation.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      beam deflection, elevator affecting a spring,
      Answer question