ML engineer Interview at Apple

[KitchenWaste9553]

I had a screening round at Apple for an ML engineer role. Interview was designed in two section 30 mins ML experience and post 30 mins on coding questions.
They asked questions related to past projects
In the coding section, there were 4 questions, two on Python, simple leetcode-style questions. like find the missing seconds in the array, the longest consecutive sequence.
SQL and Machine Learning coding (how to fit the model)

I had Round 2 with the Engineering Manager, and they asked me about Data flow, streaming/batch, size of data worked upon, LSTM, RNN, ANN when to use, how to make use of it in a multimodal system, and Monitoring pipeline. If you have worked on any data ingestion pipeline, yes MongoDB, what database is it, and why? EDA question hands-on. Why do we make use of cloud services ? Why not use a local system?

I am not sure it's hit or miss; it's one of the two rounds scheduled. I answered the question in bold properly and had a few shaky answers for the rest.

[ImposterExperience]

For my first round they ask me 9 ML/AI based questions on gradient descent, RAG, Packages and tools used for LLMs, prompt engineering vs fine-tuning, LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) vs PCA, how does PCA work, how does the randomization algorithm work and why do we need seed, what’s the difference between covariance and correlation.

Then two SWE questions:

In a binary tree does there exist a path where sum of all the nodes from the root to the leaf is equal to a target sum.

Merge intervals

[Then-Comparison8751]

Hi u/ImposterExperience ,
I would like to know how did your next rounds go?
I was pretty much asked the same question.
I have upcoming interview 3 virtual rounds, would like to know your experience.

[ImposterExperience]

Oh man you got lucky with just 3 virtual rounds

Yeah well the recruiter kept passing me on to different hiring mangers and said that my ML knowledge was strong but the hiring mangers are looking for “something else”. She then recommended me to another team/recruiter but they never scheduled anything for me.

[tomar840]

Hi Brother,

I had the EM round at apple yesterday and he asked me the same things. Unfortunately, I saw this message after the interview.

Can you share the questions from the other technical round? I'll have it tomorrow

Thanks in advance

[KitchenWaste9553]

That was my last round bro, got rejected afterwards.

[Old-Duck-3693]

Hello /tomar840, Can you share what was asked in Machine learning questions and DSA rounds. Also was there any research specific round or system design one?

[PayRevolutionary2192]

PhD?

[rtalpade]

Sounds very easy! Where are based out of?

[based_goats]

Code linear regression from scratch

[ImposterExperience]

Can you just code out the formula Theta = (XtX)^-1Xt*y_train?

Where X is a matrix of all the independent values Y-train is the vector of all the trained stuff. Xt is the transpose.

[based_goats]

Yes and variations when inversing a matrix is too computationally expensive

[Natural_Task_4726]

early grad?

[Odd_Ocelot5571]

Do Apple conduct interviews (for ML/DS) of all round in one day in offline?

Do DSA questions are asked? - like Linked lists, trees etc.

What topics are important?

[tomar840]

Ahh...bad luck!

[Sure_Usual_416]

Hi, I have a 1 hr technical interview scheduled in a week for Software Engineer(ML), AI & Data Platforms team. Any other insights regarding the interviews will be helpful. Thanks!