Senior Solution Architect, Traffic Infrastructure ASE

Summary

ASE Traffic builds and operates Apple's managed load balancing, service mesh, and gateway offerings for routing and securing traffic across borders, trust zones, and agentic workflows. We're looking for a Solution Architect to be the primary technical partner for engineering teams across Apple who are integrating with our Traffic products. In this role, you will work directly with customer teams to understand their traffic and networking requirements, translate those requirements into concrete integration plans, and identify and help close feature gaps along the way. You'll need a strong foundation in networking fundamentals, hands-on experience with Kubernetes ingress/egress patterns, and working knowledge of Envoy and service mesh concepts. Above all, you should enjoy working closely with people, translating ambiguous requirements into clear technical solutions, and driving those solutions to completion.

Description

As a Solution Architect on ASE Traffic, you will act as the bridge between our platform and the engineering teams who depend on it. You'll meet with customer teams to understand their current traffic architecture, application topology, and networking requirements, then design integration paths onto Apple's managed traffic products.

Responsibilities

Partnering directly with customer engineering teams to gather and clarify their traffic, load balancing, and service mesh requirements
Assessing customer Kubernetes deployments and designing appropriate ingress/egress integration patterns
Advising customers on Envoy configuration and mesh adoption best practices
Identifying gaps between customer requirements and current Traffic product capabilities, and working with engineering to prioritize and close them
Producing clear technical solution designs, migration plans, and documentation that customer teams can execute against
Reviewing customer integration designs for correctness, resiliency, and adherence to traffic best practices
Serving as an escalation point for customers running into integration issues
Working cross-functionally with Traffic engineering, SRE, and partner teams to ensure customer solutions are supportable long-term
Contributing to internal documentation, reference architectures, and self-service guidance to scale solutioning beyond 1:1 engagements

Minimum Qualifications

Solid networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, TLS/mTLS)
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, especially ingress/egress traffic patterns
Working knowledge of Envoy, and/or other service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd, or others)
Strong ability to gather requirements from customers and translate ambiguity into a clear technical plan
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting technical solutions to engineers of varying seniority

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with load balancing strategies, service discovery, and rate limiting at scale
Experience with distributed systems design and analyzing systems for performance or reliability issues
Familiarity with API design for network-related services and inter-process communication (sockets, gRPC, message queues)
Experience supporting live, customer-facing services in a production environment
Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities, and drive multi-team initiatives to completion
Ability to foster trusting relationships across a diverse set of internal customer teams
Experience with traffic solutions over 3rd-party cloud providers is a plus

Pay & Benefits — Seattle, Washington, 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 $113,200 and $201,100, 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.