Product manager interviews at Apple are challenging, and they’re different from other top tech companies. You’ll be up against an unpredictable interview process and questions that are specific to Apple.
The good news is that the right preparation will make all the difference, helping you land a job offer at your dream company. So we’ve put together the following guide to the Apple PM interview, including interview questions, preparation tools, and a summary of the overall process.
Consider this your ultimate guide to the Apple PM interview.
Interview With an Apple Engineering Project Manager (CoreOS)
Apple Engineering Program Manager Interview Questions
- Why are you interested in Apple Retail?
- Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer?
- What is your favorite Apple product?” This was more of an icebreaker, as it happened a few minutes before the interview was scheduled to start?
- Why do you want to work at Apple?
- Tell me about a time you succeeded when someone else failed?
- Tell me about a time you were asked by a customer for something unexpected or unrealistic?
- Tell me about a time that you had to learn something new very quickly?
- What experience do you have in problem solving with a team?
- Why do you want to work for apple?
- How do you manage a project in which stakeholders have differing priorities?
- What are the 3 things a project manager needs to succeed?
- How do you put in place testing for a product that might cause personal injury to the user?
Skills and Qualifications Required to be an Engineering Manager at Apple
Here are some of the essential and preferred skills and qualifications required by EMâs at Apple:
Strategy questions (~12%)
Strategy interview questions test whether youre comfortable thinking about the wide range of aspects good PMs need to take into account when making product decisions. At Apple, you’ll frequently be expected to take the lead on projects with minimal input from others, so you’ll need an excellent sense for strategy.
Come ready to share the processes and methodologies from your own PM playbook with the interviewer, and how you break down complex problems. You’ll be asked to discuss your product vision, and how you work with other teams to build out a roadmap.
The first three questions below come from Apple, and the rest are from Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
Apple PM interview questions: Strategy
- What’s more important, fixing the customer’s problem or creating a good customer experience?
- Our engineering teams are pretty used to employing x methodologies. What is your opinion of them? Have you used them in the past?
- What are your favored tools to manage x process (workflow, people management, wire-framing)? Why?
- Imagine you’re the CEO of Apple — what product would you eliminate from the lineup? [TIP: dont say iCloud]
- How would you turn Facebook events around? (see our step-by-step answer)
- What do you think that, as a business, we should do next?
- How would you bootstrap a product that helps people find apartments?
- If you were the CEO of LEGO, what new product line would you come up with to increase revenue?
- Imagine you’re a PM at a startup that works with big data from the NHL — what’s the first product you would ship?
- How would you sell live plants at Amazon?
For more information, check out our article on how to answer strategy interview questions.
Design questions (~20%)
One of the PMs core tasks is to help design new product features and improve existing ones. So interviewers ask design questions to assess your customer empathy, creativity, and ability to use a structured approach to design products.
As Apple is very proud of the products they produce, you’ll likely be asked design questions targeting them. So come in with a detailed understanding of Apple’s latest products. Be prepared to create a high-level product design with specific features, while explaining your implementation and product timeline.
The first three questions below come from Apple’s Glassdoor reports, and we picked the rest from Amazon, Facebook, and Google PM interviews.
Apple PM interview questions: Design
- Design a voice assistant product for kids
- Whats your favorite Apple product? Why? How would you improve it?
- What feature(s) would you like to see added to “product X”?
- Design a computer keyboard (answer)
- Design an alarm clock for the blind
- How would you improve Facebook? (answer)
- How would you improve Google Pay?
- Tell me about your favorite product that’s not an app or website
For more information, take a look at our articles on how to answer product design questions, product improvement questions and the favorite product question in PM interviews.
FAQ
What does an engineering program manager do at Apple?
How do you prepare for a program manager interview?
- How do your responsibilities differ from those of your project managers?
- What technology and tools do you find are necessary to be successful in your role?
- What metrics do you review to measure success?
- What’s your experience with program charters?
How do I prepare for an Apple interview?
- Research about the requirements for the role. Read the job description and see how your skills make you a good fit for that role.
- Read about the company. …
- Ask yourself when, where, and how you’ve demonstrated the values and for skills they seek.
What questions do they ask in an Apple interview?
- What is your favorite Apple device? Why? …
- Tell me about a time you completely failed. How did you bounce back from it? …
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager. …
- Behavioral/situational. …
- Leadership. …
- Technical/skills questions. …
- Company-specific. …
- General competency-based.
