Director of Engineering, Claris AI Services

Summary

Join Claris, an Apple subsidiary, as Director of Engineering for Claris AI Services. We are seeking an experienced engineering leader to own product development for a new AI-native cloud service

This role leads the engineering team building the service end to end: the AI answer pipeline and model orchestration, real-time access to external systems of record, the data foundation, the web application, and the APIs and gateway that tie them together. The service is built on Claris platform technology and runs in Apple's cloud, serving enterprise and education customers.

Description

You will partner daily with product management, program management, design, QA, and security, and you will own the delivery cadence: a release roughly every sprint, gated by feature flags, security review, and AI privacy review. Your leadership will determine how fast an early-stage product becomes a durable, scalable business.
Further detail on the product, roadmap, and team will be shared during the interview process.

Responsibilities

Own engineering strategy and execution for the service across the AI layer, external data connectivity, data platform, frontend, and API layers. Set technical direction, make architecture calls, and hold the team to a high bar for quality and velocity.
Build, mentor, and lead the Claris Cloud Services engineering team. Grow technical leadership within the team, raise the bar on hiring, and create a culture of ownership and follow-through.
Drive the AI architecture of the product: retrieval and query planning over customer data, model orchestration and evaluation, prompt and pipeline quality, cost and latency management, and the accuracy of generated analysis. Establish how the team measures and improves answer quality over time.
Own reliability and operational readiness for a multi-tenant SaaS service: availability targets, observability, incident response, on-call, and performance at customer scale.
Ensure the product meets Apple and Claris standards for security, privacy, compliance, and data protection, and partner with security and AI privacy reviewers to clear those gates without stalling delivery.
Run a predictable delivery system with product and program management: clear prioritization, credible commitments, transparent status, and release discipline including feature flag rollout and go/no-go criteria.
Represent Claris Cloud Services engineering to Claris and Apple leadership. Communicate roadmap, tradeoffs, risk, and progress in terms executives and cross-functional partners can act on.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
8+ years managing software engineering teams, with a demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams
12+ years of software engineering experience, including cloud-based SaaS product development
Proven track record shipping customer-facing SaaS products on a regular release cadence, with measurable improvement in quality and delivery predictability
Strong understanding of GenAI architecture, including LLM application patterns, retrieval, tool and function calling, agent orchestration, and evaluation of model output quality
Experience owning production services, including reliability, observability, incident response, and multi-tenant data isolation
Proven experience leading cross-team initiatives from planning through execution in partnership with product and program management
Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels
Strong leadership and interpersonal skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with agentic architectures and standardized tool and data interfaces such as the Model Context Protocol
Experience leading globally distributed team
Experience taking an early-stage product from initial traction to scale, including the shift from feature velocity to durability and cost efficiency
Solid analytical, problem-solving, consultation, and organizational skills

Pay & Benefits — Sunnyvale, California, United States

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 $267,800 and $401,700, 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.

Application Deadline

Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.