Machine Learning Engineer · Hiring Manager Round · Coding

Apple — Machine Learning Engineer ❌ Failed

Level: Senior-Level

Round: Hiring Manager Round · Type: Coding · Difficulty: 5/10 · Duration: 45 min · Interviewer: Friendly

Topics: Machine Learning, Algorithms, Behavioral, Time Complexity

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Interview date: 2026-01-27

Got offer: False

Summary

Hiring Manager Screen

Question: The hiring manager introduced themself and the team, explaining their use of traditional ML and exploration of generative AI. I introduced myself. I was asked why I want to leave my current company, and I mentioned Apple's reputation, data scalability, and the applicability of my PhD research to the team.

Details

The coding portion involved debugging str.isalnum() due to extra parentheses. I was allowed to use Google to debug. I was asked about the time complexity and whether I frequently use s[::-1] in my work. I answered truthfully that I do not, and I suggested the two-pointer method as an alternative.

I was also asked about a major achievement and how I measured it. Other questions included the current state of my team, user stories of the product I'm working on, how to monitor customer usage KPIs, the primary programming languages used, and whether I miss doing research.

python str.isalnum

python s[::-1]