Software Engineering Manager — ASE Media Processing Infrastructure

Summary

At Apple, great ideas quickly become phenomenal products, services, and customer experiences. Join us in powering the global media experiences loved by millions! Our Media Processing Infrastructure team designs, builds, and operates the scalable, resilient, and high-performance workflow platforms that ingest, process, and transcode rich audio and video at massive scale.

Our portfolio spans from lightweight App Store previews to multi-terabyte feature film sources — powering flagship Apple services including Apple TV, Apple TV Channels, Apple Fitness+, Apple Original Films & TV, Apple Music Video, hosted Apple Podcasts, and live linear streaming orchestration. We build robust, distributed systems that process media flawlessly, focusing on reliability, extreme performance, and disruptive engineering excellence.

Description

In this role, you will lead a high-caliber team responsible for the core workflow and distributed transcoding infrastructure that power Apple’s media ecosystem. You will own the strategy, technical roadmap, and architectural direction for systems managing exponentially growing asset volumes and workflow complexity across both VOD (including sports VOD and clips) and live linear streaming services.

As a hands-on technical manager, you will remain deeply credible in the underlying architecture and distributed Java backend systems while fostering a culture of ownership, operational rigor, and continuous growth. You will also champion modern engineering velocity by cultivating your team's fluency with agentic and generative AI tooling—driving adoption to accelerate delivery and set a new standard for engineering excellence.

Responsibilities

Lead hiring, onboarding, mentoring, and performance management to build, retain, and inspire a world-class, inclusive engineering team.
Define and communicate the team's technical vision, architectural roadmap, and execution strategy aligned with broader Apple Media Services objectives.
Maintain deep technical credibility across distributed Java backend services, media pipelines, and storage/caching layers—guiding critical architecture decisions and high-scale design reviews.
Drive the evolution of our high-performance asset cache solution and media orchestration engines, expanding them as foundational platform offerings adopted across Apple.
Scale and harden infrastructure to handle rapid growth in both asset volume and workflow complexity across VOD, sports highlights, and live linear orchestration.
Drive your team’s adoption and sustained fluency with generative and agentic AI tooling to elevate engineering velocity, code quality, and testing practices.
Actively shape AI-assisted developer workflows within the team and champion best practices across the broader organization.
Partner closely with cross-functional stakeholders across engineering, Product, Project Management, Operations, and SRE to ensure seamless end-to-end delivery and high system availability.
Champion operational excellence and reliability, ensuring mission-critical production pipelines maintain world-class resilience, low latency, and fault tolerance.

Minimum Qualifications

5+ years of software engineering experience designing, building, and operating mission-critical, highly scalable distributed systems at production scale.
Proven track record of building, leading, and mentoring high-performing software engineering teams with direct people management responsibility.
Deep technical expertise in Java and modern backend distributed system architectures (concurrency, distributed caching, asynchronous messaging, and workflow orchestration).
Demonstrated ability to remain technically credible across complex systems—engaging in architectural reviews and deep-dive technical discussions that earn the trust of senior engineers.
Strong track record of partnering cross-functionally and driving alignment across engineering, project management, operations, and SRE organizations.
Proven experience with platform-oriented engineering—designing reusable, scalable infrastructure and APIs that serve as dependable foundations for other teams.
BS Degree in Computer Science or equivalent work experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Prior experience in direct people management leading teams of 5+ engineers in a fast-paced platform or infrastructure domain.
Hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks, generative AI tooling, or LLM-integrated developer workflows applied to production software development.
Skilled in fostering organizational AI fluency—evaluating developer tooling, establishing modern workflows, and driving sustained adoption across an engineering team.
Experience with large-scale media processing pipelines, video transcoding technologies (e.g., HEVC, HDR, stereoscopic video), or live streaming linear orchestration.
Proven background building and scaling distributed caching tiers or high-throughput asset storage solutions adopted broadly across an enterprise organization.
Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous, high-scale media requirements into robust technical roadmaps and durable platform architectures.

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 $195,700 and $338,400, 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.