Interview Preparations

Here are all the notes I wrote down in preparation for interviewing with Apple, Service Now, and Qualcomm. I only ended with an offer from Apple that I accepted. Along the way, I learned how having a catalog of examples to talk about was helpful. Practicing speaking about the examples also helped. The hardest part of all interviews, for me, was the leet-code style questions, because my brain tires and sometimes gets into a stuck place. The good part is, if you are friendly, speak slowly, and work well with your interviewer, there is a good chance they will reciprocate with kindness.

Leadership examples

Aspects to keep in mind

• Speak to complexity of larger projects
• Refer to times of project ownership

Release manager at REI

• Created documentation for 10+ teams
• I became an expert best practices for component use
• Started and maintained end to end tests for deployment verification

Architecting for content creation at REI

• Discovered multiple team needs
• Discovery on proposed technical solutions
• Advocated for a D.R.Y. approach by using reusable components
• Worked with FE & BE developers to implement a modular system

Creating a checkout experience at Veyl

• Architecting deployment patterns for multiple domains
• Presenting approaches to CTO and the proposed solution
• Owner of project, all major features, and all bugs
• Guided two other developers to contribute
• Created detailed documentation for future developers

Lead React Native application at Guild Mortgage

• After onboarding into the project, revamped state management within the app
• Created reusable components and championed the initiative within the team

Architected the Customer Portal at Guild Mortgage

• Created a deployment pipeline
• Developed an integration and migration strategy
• Led a team of developers and executed the successful of a new customer portal

Apple Behavioral Questions

Little to no direction: Checkout App

• Very little design direction and storyboarding
• Needed to architect supporting multiple brands with a single deployment
• Many UX decisions were made at development time
• Many feature requests, but with few requirements

Working outside of my role: Guild Mortgage

• Lots of frontend mentoring for coworkers on projects I was not involved in
• Set up CI development pipelines
• Architected data integration of React development with legacy PHP websites
• Created React boilerplate templates for internal teams

Why Apple and why this role

• The level of standards Apple holds aligns with my own values
• I appreciate that with Apple products and solutions, you know it will be of quality
• I generally prefer fewer products, but of high quality and thought
• Eager to contribute and test my skills and leadership with talented people who are also kind and motivated

Analytical thinking: Component library creation at REI

• Decided how a layout component would work by analyzing all current use cases and creating a solution for most
• Lots of decisions about which features to include and how they would relate to future components
• Decisions would impact frontend development for all teams at REI

Why I fit the role

• Strong UX background, familiar with common website patterns, user behavior, know how to make an accessible website, and I am highly collaborative
• Great at debugging and working through complex issues that can come up with both internal and external services
• Motivated, proactive, and can usually find ways to support and help a project proceed and succeed
• Strong listening skills for both technical discussions and planning development

Customer service orientation: CMS creation process

• Advocated for a better user experience when creating content
• Architected a way for reusable components and content that would save time

Inquisitiveness: Build tools at Sony

• Upgraded internal tools for building web apps in addition to regular tasks

Innovation: Checkout page

• Created a way, based on the URL, to output a different version of a checkout app
• Each brand had its own URL, but all URLs pointed to the same deployment

Problem-solving: Supporting teams at REI

• I was the main point of contact for the component library that all frontend developers relied on
• My process was to first listen, then to replicate the issue and context of any problems

Communication

• When things are difficult to understand or tensions are high, breaking down a situation into smaller parts can often help

7 steps to solving problems

1. Listen:

• Listen for clues
• Details help solve optimally
• Ask clarifying questions
• Examine edge cases, if needed

2. Draw an example

• Use large examples
• Use generic examples

3. Start with brute force

• Something better than nothing
• State runtime, then optimize
• Try something, then correct
• Note the time and memory complexity

4. Optimize

• Sometimes, just talk brute force
• Most time here

5. Walk through algorithm

• Walk through before writing code
• Make sure you know what you're doing before starting to code

6. Write code

• Might not need to actually execute code
• They want to know your thought process
• Make it as bug-free as possible

7. Verification

• Look for any last improvements
• Show you care about quality
• Talk about current bottlenecks in solution

Leet code patterns

Binary search

• Works when data is sorted, divide in half recursively
• Prefix sum: save time with precalculated values
• Examples: 303, 325, 560

Two pointers

• Pointers start at ends or middle, meet or disperse
• Examples: 167, 15, 11

Sliding window

• When a max length is given and working with array
• Examples: 643, 3, 76

Fast and slow pointers

• Check if linked list has a cycle
• The two pointers will meet if something is a cycle
• Examples: 141, 202, 287

Rearranging a link list

• Do it in place with a previous, current, and next pointers
• Examples: 206, 92, 24

Monotonic stack

• Finding next greater or next smallest in array
• Use a new stack array to track indexes
• Examples: 496, 739, 84

Top K elements

• Use a min heap of size K
• Examples: 215, 347, 373

Overlapping intervals

• Sort by start time
• Go one by one to new
• Examples: 561, 57, 435

Modified binary search

• Find sorted parts
• Sort each half
• Examples: 33, 153, 240

Binary tree reversal

• Left to right, right to left, at each level
• Examples: 257, 230, 124, 107

Depth first search (DFS)

• Keep track of visited nodes
• Perform operation on current node
• Explore unvisited neighbors
• Examples: 133, 131, 210

Breadth first search (BFS)

• Level by level
• Shortest path between two nodes
• Transforming words
• Use a queue, add starting node to it
• Track visited, process current, and add neighbors to queue
• Examples: 102, 994, 127

Matrix reversal

• Use DFS/BFS
• Find shortest path in grid
• Examples: 733, 200, 130

Backtracking

• Generating permutations
• Include and element or not, go to next, then in reverse
• Examples: 46, 78, 51, 17

Dynamic programming

• Examples: 70, 322, 1143, 300, 416, 312

System design

Understand problem and establish scope (5min)

• Ask questions to understand
• Clarify requirements & features
• Who are users?
• Agree on some features to focus on
• Understand how large/scale we need to handle
• Make rough estimates of scale

Propose high level design and get buy-in (20min)

• Agreement with interviewer on design
• Top-down approach and start with APIs
• APIs are contract with client and BEs
• Decide on using REST or GraphQL
• Define input and output of APIs
• Verify that APIs will satisfy functional requirements
• No APIs unrelated to functionality we don't need
• If lots of communication between client and server, websocket could be used, but it is hard to scale

High level design diagram (15mins)

• Blueprint of how all APIs and DBs work together
• Verify diagram satisfies all requirements
• Possibly use a load balancer and API gateway
• Introduce the DB layer
• Include all major features
• For later: Discuss DB scaling, concurrency, failure, redis
• Data model and schema: Consider read/write ratios
• Discuss which kind of DB to use and indexing options (Solr)

Wrap up (5min)

• Optimizations, summary
• Possibly add: Sharding for large DBs, load balancer for heavy reads, multiple DBs, a read-only DB, geolocations, cached data
• AWS related services: Cloudfront or Akamai to cache files, Dynamo for NoSQL, RDS for MySQL, Elastic Load Balancer, S3, EC2, Elasticache (Redis)

Negotiations

Things to ask for

• If looking for a match, ask: Can you match this amount? Do not tell the company name
• Don't ask more than a company will go to
• Ask over the phone
• Wait for a full offer if possible
• Other things in a package can increase value
• WFH setup upgrades as bonus
• Vacation days can be negotiated
• Ask about conferences or professional development support, maybe courses

During the process

• Stay likable throughout the process
• Have reasons for all asks
• Make it clear you are very interested and attainable
• Understand who exactly you are negotiating with
• Understand the hard constraints on their end
• Prepare for their tough questions
• Keep in mind their intent in questions
• Consider the entirety of an offer, not just salary
• Share all of your "asks" upfront
• Do not haggle just to do it
• Timing other offers can be important
• Avoid ultimatums
• Remember, they do want to hire you
• Keep in mind that constraints can change
• Keep perspective on the entire situation

Preparation and during

• Know your value: Research, consider past positions, think about your future
• Start with a baseline: Where you want to start and your stretch goal
• Practice talking points: Strategize, rehearse
• Take time: Request time, ask for a deadline
• Don't value yourself too low to avoid ruffling feathers

Posted November 12th, 2025.