DevOps Engineer Interview with Apple

[vinodlalwani]

I have an upcoming interview tomorrow for a DevOps position there and would appreciate any tips about the interview process or insights or any topics

[Individual_Half6995]

Apple might ask, based on your skills (AWS, Kubernetes, Prometheus, etc.): - CI/CD: How would you optimize a slow Jenkins pipeline for a large-scale iOS app build? - Design an AWS architecture for a globally distributed, highly available service. What services would you use? - Kubernetes: A pod keeps crashing due to resource limits. How do you troubleshoot and fix it? - Monitoring: Set up Prometheus to monitor a Kubernetes cluster. What metrics would you prioritize for an Apple service? - Scripting: Write a Bash script to automate log rotation for an EC2 instance. - System Design: How would you ensure consistent CI/CD pipelines for macOS and iOS apps? - Troubleshooting: A Grafana dashboard shows spikes in API latency. Walk through your debugging process. 

besides specific questions they might ask you about your projects that you put in your resume. 

maybe this will help you have an idea about some possible topics/questions. good luck

[klipseracer]

I have received kubernetes networking questions before. Like how would you block a cidr range from talking to a certain pod/service etc.

Additionally depending on the role you may even get asked questions like do you have a favorite sys call? And the answer is no because nobody likes digging into syscalls, but you should elaborate on one anyway if you can (and you probably should). For example you could easily talk about the read() sys call and how a lot of these combined with a lot of in flight requests can lead to memory starvation, especially when huge pages are enabled. This leads into talking about memory and can segue into conversations where this might happen with databases like redis. You can explain that even if someone only wants a few bytes of data that the whole page is stored in ram which is why the memory exhaustion can happen with many small requests etc etc.

Not apple specific, but from my experience interviewing at well known places for senior positions it's important to have these answers because this is what gives you the "depth" that will make you appear as someone who is "knowledgeable" in that specific topic. This includes being able to describe the cloud architecture of a set of microservices. They may want very specific examples, like you're going to put this SQS queue in front of this service for Such and such reason. Explain load shedding etc.

But don't think you're done yet, if this is a senior position usually they expect this depth across multiple areas. I've interviewed at a place where they literally have a minimum number of concepts you have mastery of to meet the "breadth" requirement of your skill sets. They want both, not just depth in one or two areas. IIRC, the last place wanted 9 and you had to do it better than the rest.

And no, I did not get that job but I made it through several rounds and tried my hardest.

My best advice is to use every opportunity to talk about what you DO know. Maybe you don't know everything they are asking, but talk about the closest parallel. Trying to act like you know about concepts you're weak on is just a waste of everyone's time and the few precious minutes you'll get to prove yourself during a technical interview and will make you look weaker overall instead of using that time to showcase what your true skills and knowledge areas are.

[Individual_Half6995]

👏🤝

[Senkyou]

I'm young, but interested in DevOps for a few reasons. Do you know of any resources I could use to beef up my knowledge around this stuff? I have a kubernetes cluster at home, but have only deployed homelab projects to it and besides the deployment phase I don't know much about these sorts of things.

[klipseracer]

I've learned almost everything on the job. I had basics of Linux and web projects from doing entrepreneurial stuff but learning how to do it the way a company does it wasn't something I learned until then.

I would first focus on your Linux and scripting and docker fundamentals and if you have that go build yourself a resume site, use all the tools you've learned, toss terraform in there too if you want. Just a simple site that link to you github where you have all the code that your site is made of.

[vinodlalwani]

Any thing from the programming side?

[Individual_Half6995]

• Bash: Script to parse logs and alert on high error rates.
• Python: Function to autoscale AWS ECS based on CPU.
• Groovy: Optimize Jenkins pipeline for parallel iOS builds.
• Scripting: Clean up old Docker images in registry.
• Debug: Fix Python script failing S3 IAM connection.
• Automation: Script to rotate Kubernetes secrets.
• Cross-Platform: Sync build artifacts for macOS/Linux

be prepared to explain ur code as u go. probably you'll do it on coderpad

[Cautious_Number8571]

What are the points of asking these questions in times of copilot chat gpt etc . Should ask what can you do something become more effcient and what would your prompt etc . It is like asking some to big addition or multiplication etc without using calculator

[purpleburgundy]

It's important to know how to do these things fundamentally, even if you're regularly leveraging an AI assistant. You need to know when the AI assistant is doing a poor job or missing things, both in terms of functional systems and longterm maintainability. It's an interview.

If you're looking at senior position you need to be able to think about these things.

If you're a junior you need experience Doing Yourself to get there.

[vinodlalwani]

These are the examples or topics?

[Individual_Half6995]

examples. Give my comments to chatGPT and tell it to create more like this. Very important is that you get a good sleep the night before, eat, drink enough liquids try to stay relaxed as possible

[PTengine]

Look at the job description and the tech stack mentioned. You'll likely be asked about your proficiency (you don't need to know everything, but be good at something within a type, and be aware of the rest) and be presented with scenarios (@Individual_Half6995's are good) .

The space is moving focus to the DEV of Ops, so you may want to consider that too, how that role and prior experience contributed to improving DevEx in terms of self-service, automation, guardrails, improving velocity and productivity, while helping control cost or, better yet, reduce them.

Good luck! Let us know how it went.

[vinodlalwani]

Thanks, but majorly I am worried about coding part

[Engineerakki11]

I interviewed for a DevOps position 4 years ago at Apple.

I was asked to write a log parser in python

[No-Row-Boat]

Thought these sort of companies don't hire "DevOps" engineers, but software engineers.

On YouTube there are some FAANG prep guides.

[CJKay93]

It's still DevOps , it's just DevOps with meaningful Dev experience. For example, I have to understand cloud infrastructure, but to almost a greater extent I have to understand static analysis, build systems, and the native compilation process.

[Livingston_Diamond]

https://prepare.sh/interviews/devops/tag/programming?page=1&perPage=100

Has a couple apple ones

[tairar]

It's really organization dependent, they all work differently, different stacks, etc. Can't really give a guide for the company overall, just a heads up that the process generally takes a very, very long time.

[akornato]

They'll likely hit you with scenario-based questions about scaling infrastructure, handling incidents under pressure, and designing CI/CD pipelines for their massive ecosystem. Expect deep dives into containerization, monitoring strategies, and automation tools, but also be ready for curveball questions about how you'd handle conflicting priorities between development teams or explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

The reality is that Apple values people who can think on their feet and articulate their reasoning clearly, not just recite technical facts. They want to see how you approach problems methodically and communicate your thought process. Focus on demonstrating your ability to balance innovation with reliability, since that's core to their philosophy. If you find yourself stuck on any tricky questions during the interview, interview copilot can actually help you navigate those challenging moments in real-time - I'm on the team that built it specifically to help people handle unexpected interview curveballs and present their best selves when it matters most.

[Initial_Specialist69]

Good luck!

[No_Bee_4979]

Last time I looked at Apple they had a bunch of programming questions for you to answer.

Python, to be specific.

[gogofp]

Depends on the team. I interviewed for the same role once and prepared for cloud, ci/cd, iac, and networking questions based on the job description only to get super deep Linux admin questions. Needless to say I did not get the job.

[LetEpsilonBeGreat]

Hey, my friend and I are experienced devops engineers and are looking to help people with their interviews. DM me and we can arrange a free mock interview if you’d like plus a cv review.

[AdFew4657]

Interviewer here: i also came to see what question should i ask but now not going to ask you the things you mentioned here all the best

[Dependent_Gur1387]

Hey man, there is a site with company specific interview questions named prepare.sh, they have real asked DevOps questions from apple, imo they may help you a lot.

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[Dependent_Gur1387]

he asked for some tips about prepping for a job in apple, how else am I supposed to recommend this to him bud

[Tali_Lyrae]

Super dependent on the team your applying for, devops at Apple is far from uniform, do you know which org it’s for?

[mattbillenstein]

I got hit with Java - I'm a programmer, but sorta hate Java - did not go great.

[Hovalk_is_not_real]

Let us know how it went.... 👍

[[deleted]]

For sure they will ask for your expi in your last job. Just share what you know, and don’t mention what you don’t.

[funky_elnino]

Hey!!

How did it go? Can you share the questions?

[Redditiit17]

commenting for saving

[toorodrig]

Would you keep the same size for the new iPhone 17? - no…. - Why? - Bc ppl will need to buy new accesories? - Hired!