Staff Software Engineer, Apple Data Platform

The Apple Data Platform serves as a foundational building block for Apple’s Services, Software, and AI/ML ecosystem. It delivers advanced capabilities in data governance, compliance, and scalable data infrastructure, supporting both batch and real-time processing, embeddings and feature store management, lakehouse architecture, data virtualization, and inference services. These tools enable seamless analytics and AI workflows across Apple’s products and services, fostering continuous innovation and integration throughout the ecosystem. Built on a foundation of open-source technologies such as Ray, Spark, Flink, and Iceberg, the platform operates across multi-cloud and on-premises environments to power intelligent, data-driven experiences. As part of this growing platform, we are seeking a Staff Software Engineer who is passionate about developing secure, scalable, and user-centric infrastructure to support Apple’s data and AI initiatives at scale.

Description

As a technical lead, you will play a critical role in designing and building core platform capabilities that support Apple’s Data and AI workloads. You will focus on developing systems for compute abstraction, advanced workload scheduling, cost efficiency, observability, and capacity management. Your work will enable scalable, reliable, and optimized infrastructure that powers data-intensive and machine learning applications across Apple. We’re looking for individuals who are technically strong and comfortable operating at the intersection of engineering and business impact. You should have a solid grasp of infrastructure domains—such as compute, storage, networking, security, DevOps, databases, and application development—with deep expertise in at least a couple of those areas. Just as important is your ability to align engineering decisions with business goals and deliver solutions that provide measurable value. Success in this role requires strong technical communication and the ability to work effectively across teams. You’ll collaborate closely with engineers, product teams, and partners across the organization to drive architectural decisions and long-term platform strategy. A deep curiosity for complex systems, commitment to technical excellence, and focus on end-user impact will define your contributions. If you enjoy solving foundational infrastructure challenges and leading by example, we’d love to connect.

Minimum Qualifications

10+ years of experience designing, building, and operating data infrastructure across cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, Azure, and hybrid/on-prem environments. Strong background in distributed systems and cloud-native technologies, with hands-on expertise in Kubernetes, serverless frameworks, and container orchestration. Proven ability to design scalable compute platforms with a focus on intelligent scheduling, efficient resource management, and cost optimization. Strategic mindset with the ability to bridge technical decisions and business goals. Strong leadership in technical execution—skilled in prioritization, cross-team collaboration, and driving initiatives from concept to production. Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience contributing to open source projects or presenting at industry conferences in areas such as data platforms, machine learning, or AI.