Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Manager, Apple Maps

Summary

Apple Maps and location services are used by hundreds of millions of people every day to navigate the world. Behind every search, route, and point of interest is a massive distributed serving infrastructure that must be fast, reliable, and always available.

This SRE org is responsible for the availability and automation of some of the most visible and widely used services that power Apple Maps.

If you are passionate about reliability at planet scale and are excited to help us build, grow, manage and deliver infrastructure that scales with Apple Maps, this is the opportunity for you!

Description

We are looking for a senior SRE leader to set the strategic direction for our Maps serving infrastructure. This is not just a "keep the lights on" role — this is a leadership position that defines where our infrastructure goes next, how our SRE practice evolves, and how we build the teams and partnerships to get there. You will work closely with engineering, product, and operations partners across Apple to shape the roadmap for our serving platform. You will lead an organization of SREs and hold responsibility for the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of some of Apple's most visible services. We believe AI will fundamentally reshape how SRE is practiced — from incident detection and resolution to capacity planning and toil elimination — and we're looking for a leader who shares that conviction and can drive that transformation across the organization.

Responsibilities

Operate with the fundamental principle that reliability is feature number one

Define and drive the strategic roadmap for Apple Maps serving infrastructure in partnership with engineering and product teams

Lead and grow an SRE organization, setting the bar for technical excellence, operational rigor, and engineering culture

Represent the SRE perspective in cross-functional planning — translating reliability requirements into architecture decisions and investment priorities

Champion the "Engineering" in Site Reliability Engineering — driving automation, platform improvements, capacity strategy, and systems design beyond reactive incident response

Define and execute a clear AI strategy for the SRE organization — identifying high-impact opportunities where AI/ML-powered tooling can reduce toil, accelerate root cause analysis, and improve reliability outcomes

Drive adoption of AI-assisted tooling (copilots, intelligent runbooks, LLM-based diagnostics, anomaly detection) into day-to-day SRE workflows

Build a culture where engineers actively experiment with AI tools and modern approaches to solve operational problems

Build strong partnerships across Apple, negotiating priorities and aligning on shared goals with an Apple-first mindset

Communicate effectively at the executive level — presenting strategy, trade-offs, and progress to senior leadership

Mentor and develop leaders within your organization, creating a culture where people do their best work

Celebrate wins, recognize contributions, and make tough calls when needed

Minimum Qualifications

10-15+ years of experience in SRE or adjacent disciplines (systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, production engineering), with at least 10 years in senior management roles
Demonstrated experience leading SRE organizations supporting large-scale, user-facing distributed services
Strong technical proficiency in Linux fundamentals, distributed systems concepts, networking, and infrastructure at scale
Demonstrated experience applying AI/ML tooling or LLM-based solutions to improve SRE or infrastructure operations
Ability to read and understand code produced by LLMs and evaluate its suitability for production use
Has defined or is actively executing an AI strategy for a large SRE organization
Proven ability to communicate at the executive level and negotiate across organizational boundaries

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) and Kubernetes at scale
Background in capacity planning, performance engineering, or infrastructure architecture
Track record of driving cultural and process transformation within SRE organizations
Experience building or deploying AI-powered operational tooling (AIOps, intelligent alerting, automated diagnostics)
Hands-on experience with LLM-based developer/SRE productivity tools
Track record of driving AI adoption within engineering teams
Experience operating services at Apple-scale user volumes

Pay & Benefits — Cupertino, 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.