Senior Software Engineer - Intelligence Platform Data Foundations, Proactive at Apple in Cupertino

Job description

• Posted:
• Sep 18, 2026
• 200674386
• At Apple, creative ideas evolve into extraordinary products, services, and experiences that touch millions of people every day. As AI unlocks entirely new device capabilities, building the next generation of intelligent system experiences starts with understanding the context of the user.
• The Intelligence Platform Data Foundations team builds the data modeling, persistence, and synchronization infrastructure that brings personalization to intelligent experiences across iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and more. This is your opportunity to design the foundational systems that power features like Spotlight Search, Siri, and Apple Intelligence — integrating personal context while protecting user privacy.
• You will design, build, and optimize the data persistence and synchronization systems that bring personalized context to Apple Intelligence across every Apple device while keeping that data private and on device. You'll work across the Apple OS stack, from low-level storage and system frameworks to the experiences customers touch every day, solving indexing and processing challenges at scale where performance, memory, and battery life all matter. You'll partner with machine learning and feature teams to bring named entities and user-interaction signals into the platform, championing strong-typing best practices and Apple's high bar for user privacy along the way.
• As a senior member of the team, you will own critical components of the platform end to end, from initial design through long-term evolution. You'll propose architectures that shape the platform's technical direction and provide design guidance to partner engineering teams across the company, while also helping modernize engineering and code-review practices with the latest tools. Success in this role calls for a systems and backend engineer who solves problems creatively, thrives in a fast-paced and collaborative environment, and takes pride in shipping reliable code that runs on devices millions of people rely on.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize on-device data persistence and synchronization systems across iOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
• Solve large-scale indexing and data-processing challenges with performant, resource-efficient solutions across the full stack.
• Partner with machine learning and feature teams to onboard named entities and user-behavior data streams into the platform, upholding strong-typing best practices and Apple's privacy standards.
• Diagnose and resolve correctness, performance, and reliability issues with foundational system services in a distributed, multi-device environment.
• Provide design guidance and technical expertise to partner engineering teams across the company.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• Expertise in at least one compiled language (C/C++/Objective-C, Swift, Go, Java, Rust, or similar).
• Experience with backend and systems-level programming, including concurrency and multi-threaded software design.
• Experience building production data infrastructure such as databases, storage, serialization, or synchronization systems.
• Ability to write reliable, resilient, performant, and well-tested code, with skills in debugging and technical communication gained through delivering production software on large engineering projects.
• Experience building database or search integrations, or with distributed systems and data synchronization across devices or nodes.
• Familiarity with machine learning concepts and experience collaborating with machine learning teams.
• Experience with performance profiling and tracing tools.
• Experience with macOS or iOS development.
• Familiarity with data serialization formats and schema or strong-typing design, along with a passion for building privacy-preserving, high-performance foundational technologies.

Skills

Required

• Backend and systems-level programming
• Debugging and technical communication

Preferred

• Database or search integrations
• Performance profiling and tracing tools
• macOS or iOS development

Benefits

• At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $150,400 and $277,600, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.
• Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You’ll also receive benefits including: Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation. Learn more about Apple Benefits
• Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.