I went through the Apple SWE interview process twice: once in 2024 (no offer), once in early 2026 (offer, accepted). Different teams, so I can share a bit of variance too.
Online Assessment (if you get one) Not every candidate gets an OA. I got one in 2026 via CodeSignal. Two problems, 70 minutes. The difficulty was roughly LeetCode medium. One graph problem, one string manipulation. Nothing that would surprise you if you've been practicing. You share your screen and they record, but there's no live interviewer.
Some candidates skip the OA and go straight to a phone screen coding round. Seems to depend on the team and how the recruiter sourced you.
Phone Screen Coding One engineer, 45-60 minutes, collaborative editor (usually CoderPad). The problem I got was a sliding window variant. Medium difficulty, maybe a medium-hard. They want to see you think out loud, not just produce the answer. I explained my brute force before jumping to the optimized version and that seemed right.
They do care about clean code. I was asked to clean up variable names partway through. Not a big deal, but note it.
Onsite Coding (x2 rounds) Two separate coding sessions, each 60 minutes, different interviewers. In my 2026 loop: Round 1: trees/graphs, two problems, first easy warm-up then a real medium. Round 2: dynamic programming adjacent (though they never call it that), one problem with a follow-up that changed the constraints.
They don't explicitly tell you the topic. Both rounds used CoderPad with an actual IDE setup, not a blank editor.
Time complexity. They always ask. Have a clear answer ready and be able to explain the space complexity too, not just time.
Leetcode mediums are the sweet spot for prep. I did about 120 problems over 6 weeks and felt comfortable. I didn't see a hard problem in either loop.