Software Engineer - UI Rendering, Performance & Power

Summary

Apple's Compositing, Color, and Display Software organization provides the graphics software foundation for all of Apple's innovative products, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and Apple Watch. Our goal is to enable developers and HI designers to create exceptional visual experiences by efficiently utilizing hardware acceleration and color technologies through compositing and display. The technologies we develop are central to enabling enhanced experiences across our platforms, including acceleration for Liquid Glass UI material and presenting content with the highest color fidelity.

Are you excited to bring new UI experiences to millions of people around the world across our products? Are you passionate about solving complex graphics challenges in innovative ways, to deliver beautiful, responsive experiences at scale? Do you enjoy working collaboratively on a common goal to bring the best experience to our customers? If all this resonates with you, this is the job for you.

Description

We are looking for an exceptional Software Engineer with real-time graphics rendering expertise. In this role, you will contribute to core graphics and rendering initiatives, implementing and optimizing features within the CoreAnimation rendering pipeline, Metal command generation, and low-level compositing architectures powering visual experiences across Apple's product ecosystem—from Apple Watch, Home, and Apple TV devices to iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision platforms.

At the intersection of design, frameworks, and low-level platform systems, you will collaborate closely with UI Frameworks, System Experience, Human Interface (HI) Design, and GPU/Hardware teams to bring new UI materials (such as blur and glass effects), system animations, and platform experiences to life. You will contribute to performance improvements that reduce rendering latency across CPU and GPU pipelines, optimize battery efficiency, and eliminate visual corruptions across diverse hardware configurations.

Responsibilities

* Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with teams across UI Frameworks, System Experience, HI Design, Metal, and GPU Hardware to deliver rendering solutions for complex graphics challenges.
* CoreAnimation Pipeline & Metal Development: Implement and optimize UI rendering architecture and features within CoreAnimation across Apple platforms, contributing to efficient Metal command generation and pipeline performance.
* Multi-Platform Experience & Material Innovation: Partner with framework and design teams to implement rendering support for new UI materials (e.g., blur, Liquid Glass effects), system animations, and visual design language evolution across Apple Watch, Home accessories, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision products.
* Latency & Battery Engineering: Profile and optimize rendering performance to minimize latency across CPU and GPU pipelines and improve power efficiency for UI rendering across the device lineup.
* Visual Quality & System Health: Drive rendering quality, correctness, and visual fidelity by diagnosing and fixing glitches, flickering, frame drops, and visual corruptions in multi-layered rendering contexts.
* Modern Engineering Workflows: Leverage modern engineering practices—including agentic coding workflows—to accelerate development iteration and deliver high-quality code.

Minimum Qualifications

* 3+ years of experience in software development
* 2+ years of experience with real-time rendering and computer graphics
* Experience delivering graphics or rendering features in production software.
* Strong expertise in C/C++ programming, and GPU-accelerated rendering pipelines.
* Hands-on experience with modern graphics APIs (Metal, Vulkan, or DirectX) and low-level rendering optimization.
* Foundational understanding of Operating Systems, Computer Architecture, and CPU/GPU programming including memory subsystems
* Strong debugging and triaging skills for complex, multi-layered systems issues
* Excellent collaboration skills with cross-functional teams on complex software projects
* Demonstrated expertise in graphics performance analysis, profiling, and optimization across CPU/GPU boundaries.
* Practical experience incorporating modern AI-assisted workflows and agentic coding tools into software engineering practices.
* Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

* Familiarity with tile-based deferred rendering (TBDR) GPU architectures and advanced graphics programming
* Experience with low-level Metal/Vulkan/D3D12 command generation, multi-threaded rendering architectures, or CPU/GPU synchronization models.
* Experience with client/server or multi-process graphics architectures
* Experience working on consumer graphics products
* Experience with automated testing frameworks for graphics rendering
* Knowledge of or interest in CoreAnimation, layer-based compositing systems, scene graph architectures, or multi-process graphics engines.
* Experience delivering graphics and UI rendering capabilities across diverse hardware constraints (mobile, wearable, spatial computing, home/embedded, desktop).
* Knowledge of color management, HDR presentation, wide color gamut workflows, or shader programming (MSL/GLSL/HLSL).
* Familiarity with iOS, macOS, watchOS, or visionOS software development in Swift or Objective-C.

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 $150,400 and $277,600, 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.