*Thread* - sometimes when interviewing people ask me about my own experience, which was...interesting.

It starts in July 2012: I had just got back from WWDC, and an Apple recruiter found me on LinkedIn...

I was working at an advertising agency building apps of questionable value for brands (back in 2010 *everyone* and their dog wanted an app).

So I had a phone interview with the manager for UIKit. I don’t remember it, but I must have been reasonable enough to pass.

(Funnily enough, that interviewer is now my skip, even though I work on something totally different. The valley is small).

Anyway, I then had two further phone screens which didn’t happen until September, with UIKit and the Passbook team.

I really wanted to work on Passbook because of that d̶u̶m̶b̶ amazing shredder animation, which was *the* hotness of iOS 6 (if you can believe that).

After the third phone interview they decide to have an on-site. It’s now January 2013, so we're six months(!) down the line.

I am flown out to California. I naively believe it would be best to stay in San Francisco and drive down to the interview in Cupertino on the day.

There is a crash on the I-280. The drive takes two hours.

I barely arrive in time, and find out I am actually interviewing for four separate teams: iCloud, UIKit, Passbook, and Sync.

As a result there are seven hours of interviews. I am tired, jet lagged, and grumpy.

The first interviewer opens with a softball, asking what the difference is between a static const and a const in C. I completely freeze up.

I have no idea how to answer. The interviewers are nice, but I can tell they think I'm a hopeless case.

Things improve a little, and I talk to the Passbook team. I complain that I can't pay for things with Passbook. They have good poker faces (Apple Pay will not launch for another two years).

They ask me how I'd implement the main view in the app, the stack of passes.

Feeling more confident, I go into the last interview of the day, with a very well-known engineer.

He asks me a question involving a data structure so obscure my own CS professor hasn't heard of it.

I leave at 5PM and check out the company store. I am utterly exhausted.

I had agreed to meet a friend for dinner in Morgan Hill. Again, I have failed to appreciate the distance between things in California. It's another hour drive there, and two hours back to my hotel.

Through a combination of fear, worry, tiredness, and food poisoning I am violently sick on the flight back.

Two weeks later, I get the feedback. "They felt you had huge potential still but a little green". I'm referred to another manager and encouraged to try again in a year.

I assume they're being polite, and don't think much about it. 2 months later I get a call out of the blue asking to schedule another phone interview.

It's for the team that tests the iOS SDK. I joke that I didn't know that team existed. The manager doesn't find it that funny.

The day before the phone call I have to fly to SF for work. I email the recruiter to cancel: he asks if I can come on-site instead.

I find four hours before my flight leaves to come to Cupertino.

There is another crash on the I-280. I later learn this is normal.

Before the interview starts, the recruiter tells me they're going to "proactively apply for your visa", because the visa lottery deadline is next week.

They tell me if I'm not successful they'll cancel the visa application. This doesn't help my anxiety.

The interviews are more relaxed, with lots of questions about how I'd break APIs in the iOS SDK. I'm pretty good at writing broken code, so I'm comfortable here.

My interview ends at lunchtime, and I drive to SFO. I take the 101 instead of the 280 to avoid traffic. A mistake.

As I'm queueing up at the departure gate the recruiter calls me: they want to offer me the job. I sleep like a baby.

It's taken me nine months from the initial contact to final result - I later learn this is unusually long.

When I arrive at Apple, I am assigned the new Apple Pay APIs to test. Ten months later, I am transferred over to the position I originally interviewed for - Passbook - without re-interviewing. The following year I present the Apple Pay APIs at WWDC for the first time.

I don't have the time to tell this story in my interviews, but I wish I did.

I interview a lot of people, and it's easy to take a rejection personally. It's not a reflection of you, it's a reflection of that one moment in time.

Maybe your interviewer is a bit of a jerk (if they are, tell your recruiter. Feedback goes both ways).

Maybe you're so jet lagged you forget what a constant is.

Maybe you don't get in the way you hoped, but it'll work out.

FWIW, I have been rejected by:

Google (x2)
FB (x1)
Twitter (x1)
Apple (x1)
Stripe (x1)
Microsoft (x1)

Stripe probably hurt the most. It was for their first EU evangelist, I blagged the interview by emailing the CEO directly with a pitch deck.

/ End thread. And to that manager who first phone screened me and kicked off the whole process, thanks.

And I'm not just saying that because you're now my skip manager, honest.