Apple Web Foundation: RESTful APIs Interview Guide

This question focuses on RESTful APIs as part of a web foundation interview. You will be expected to explain REST architectural constraints (statelessness, uniform interface), map HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) to CRUD operations, and reason about idempotency and resource URI design. Practical tasks often include sketching endpoint designs and choosing the correct verb when creating or updating resources (for example, when to use PUT vs PATCH vs POST).

In an interview flow you can expect: an initial technical screen on HTTP fundamentals and security, a whiteboard or design discussion to model resources/URIs and pagination/caching strategy, and follow-ups that probe error handling (status codes), versioning, rate limiting, and authentication/authorization choices (OAuth, JWTs, or API keys). You may also be asked to compare REST to alternatives like GraphQL or RPC-style APIs.

Skill signals to demonstrate: clear resource modeling, correct use of HTTP semantics (including idempotency), pragmatic security decisions (token strategies, scopes, transport security), proper use of status codes and error payloads, and operational concerns (pagination, caching headers, ETags, rate limiting). Mentioning HATEOAS, media types, and testing strategies (integration tests, contract tests, Postman/openapi) shows deeper maturity.

Prepare concrete examples (e.g., endpoint designs, caching headers, versioning patterns) and be ready for follow-ups on trade-offs and scalability considerations.