Software Engineer, Architecture Team (ASE)

Summary

Imagine what you could do here. At Apple, great ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job and there’s no telling what you could accomplish. Join Apple Services Engineering's Architecture Team in Seattle and help power the App Store, Apple TV+, Apple Music, and other services used by millions daily. We're looking for a Software Engineer to help design and optimize the distributed systems and cloud infrastructure behind these mission-critical platforms. You'll work alongside experienced architects to improve performance, scalability, and reliability at massive scale. This is a hands-on role — you'll develop services, dig into real architecture challenges, from fine-tuning system performance to building novel distributed solutions. If you're passionate about solving problems at scale and want your work to reach customers worldwide, we'd love to talk. Come build with us!

Description

As an Architecture team member in Apple Services Engineering you will help build the services, libraries, tooling, and workflows that power large-scale, mission-critical services in Java and Swift. You'll analyze application architectures, workload patterns, and infrastructure to identify inefficiencies and drive meaningful optimizations across our platforms — including the App Store, Apple TV+, Apple Music, and Podcasts. This work spans collaboration across multiple teams at Apple, helping define, implement, and deliver a shared technical vision. You'll also build tools that empower stakeholders and development teams to analyze and act on architectural improvements at scale.

We're looking for an engineer with strong technical and communication skills, practical knowledge of distributed systems and cloud technologies, and the ability to build relationships across the company. A genuine passion for quality, technical excellence, and understanding complex systems is essential. You'll join a team of skilled, enthusiastic engineers working in a fast-moving, high-impact space. If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you.

Minimum Qualifications

5+ years of industry experience in hands-on server-side development
Proficiency in Java with a solid understanding of the JVM, plus flexibility to work across other major languages
Experience with distributed systems, including building and maintaining highly available, scalable services
Hands-on experience with cloud native technologies and public/private cloud platforms, including deployment, monitoring, and container orchestration with Kubernetes
Experience designing and maintaining APIs and libraries, with familiarity in dependency management, build processes, and CI/CD
Ability to analyze and tune applications for performance, efficiency, and cost optimization, including experience with monitoring and log analytics tools
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science (or equivalent fields), with strong fundamentals in algorithms and data structures, and excellent written/verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with Kubernetes, reactive programming, async programming, and non-blocking IO is a huge plus
Expert in writing detailed solution specifications, diagrams, best practices/standards documentation, operating procedures, test plans/test reports, etc.
Demonstrated competence with GenAI and various LLMs for use in software development and analytic use cases
Proficient in programming languages such as Python/Swift Server/Go for automation or integration with APIs
Strong project management skills, including excellent presentation development
Influential - ability to influence teams and leaders across the company to achieve your vision
Quality focus - produce reliable, maintainable, deliverable software
Comfortable diving deep - working across multiple levels of abstraction
Passion for evangelizing technologies

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 $142,300 and $263,300, 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.