Klink was fun. Programming on the Mac was fun. Learning Python was fun. Dealing with the Python-Objective C bridge was not so fun, but you can’t have everything.

However, this was still a contract, and although they had talked about converting to permanent at the end of the contract, I had nothing close to a guarantee. So I had to keep my eye out for another position.

A couple of recruiters contacted me about IOS positions, but they required me to move, or the company looked awful, or any number of other things made those contacts not desirable.

After a few weeks, I got an email from a recruiter at Apple:

I am a recruiter with Apple and recently received a copy of your resume for review.  Would you have interest in speaking with an Engineering Mangers of ours, Dave Chan regarding an opportunity we have for an iOS Performance QA Stress Test Manager? Unfortunately I do not have a job description for you, but Dave can walk you through during your call the role and expectations.  What might work for you this week for a 30 min call?

I look forward to hearing from you.

There were problems with this, of course. It was in Cupertino. It was leading a team of QA and automation people.

I really did not feel like I had a choice but do to pursue this and see where it lead. So, I talked to the hiring manager. It was a non-technical question-and-answer session about my career to date. He suggested I talk to another person, the head of performance engineering. We talked, and had a lively discussion about what performance testing means.

So they decided to fly me out for a full round of interviews. Got an Apple looking email stating “We would like to confirm your interview for the position of IOS Performance QA Stress Test Engineer”. I guess somewhere along the way they decided not to pursue me as manager. Whatever.

I flew out on Sunday for a Monday interview, with my return flight being a red-eye on Monday night.

The interview seemed pretty ordinary, in that, at the time, they only did one technical interview. They had me solve some kind of problem in Python, and I did not do particularly well, considering I had 3 months of experience in Python. Each interview had 2 people, and while that seems normal to me now, it was jarring then.

It was weird being back on the Infinite Loop campus. Parking was almost non-existant. The cafe was very very crowded. One of the strange little things: All of the bathrooms now had the metal wedges bolted to the wall, about 1 meter off of the ground. They were about half a meter long, and they flared out to 20-30 cm on top. People put their laptops, iPads, and notebooks in them while they did their business, and retrieved them after they washed their hands. Wish more corporate bathrooms had them!

I interviewed at the beginning of December, and they kept putting off the decision and putting off the decision, and then they told me I had to wait until after the holidays. Finally, I got this:

Thank you for all of your patience through our process.   I was able to debrief with [Hiring Manager] and unfortunately the team have made the tough decision not to move forward.    While they feel you have some great experience, our role is not the right match for your current background.  I am sorry this role will not work out for you.   Are you currently speaking with any other teams here at Apple?   If not I am more than happy to share your resume to broader recruiting team for review.

I am sorry to not have better news for you and I do wish you all the best.

So. No Apple.

Sigh.