Machine Learning Engineer

Apple’s Knowledge Quality Team is building the measurement and machine learning systems behind Knowledge Q&A, which supports features such as Siri and Spotlight. In this role, you will help design and develop large-scale data management and ML and deep learning capabilities, with an emphasis on graph and web-document approaches and on using evaluation to guide product direction.

What you’ll do

• Design and develop capabilities for a platform spanning large-scale data management alongside machine learning and deep learning systems over graph data and web documents.
• Drive product evolution through measurement, evaluation, and analysis of user experience.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve how hundreds of millions of people search and get results on computers and mobile devices, with the goal of satisfying information-seeking needs.
• Contribute to advancing Knowledge Question Answering capabilities for Siri.

What you bring

• A degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field with 2+ years of industry experience building production ML/AI systems, or a PhD in a related field.
• Proficiency in mainstream programming languages including Python, Scala, and Go.
• Experience building and maintaining large-scale data systems, knowledge graphs, and end-to-end ML pipelines in production, ideally using the Apache software stack (for example, Spark).
• Hands-on production experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Experience with natural language processing, statistical data analysis, and model evaluation methodologies.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with cross-functional groups such as product, engineering, and data science.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, model deployment, and monitoring solutions.

Technologies you’ll work with

• Python, Scala, Go
• Apache software stack, Spark
• PyTorch, TensorFlow
• Natural language processing
• CI/CD pipelines, model deployment, monitoring solutions
• Knowledge graphs

Pay & benefits

The base pay range for this role is $142,300 to $263,300 per year. Apple’s base pay depends on skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
• Retirement benefits
• Discounted products and free services
• Reimbursement for certain educational expenses, including tuition
• Opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs
• Discretionary restricted stock unit awards
• Ability to purchase Apple stock at a discount via voluntary participation in the Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Discretionary bonuses or commission payments, and potential relocation (eligibility may apply)

Apple benefit, compensation, and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

Preferred qualifications

• An MS degree with 6+ years of industry experience building and scaling ML/AI systems, or a PhD degree with 3+ years of industry experience in production ML environments.
• Proven track record designing, deploying, and maintaining large-scale distributed ML systems serving millions of queries per second (QPS).
• Experience with A/B testing, experimentation frameworks, and data-driven product iteration at scale.
• Experience designing human-in-the-loop evaluation pipelines and using user feedback to improve model performance.
• Hands-on experience with LLM deployment, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), or other generative AI technologies in production.
• Experience building model monitoring, observability, and quality assurance systems for production ML services.
• Experience optimizing ML systems for latency, throughput, and cost at scale.
• Track record of shipping ML-powered features that measurably improved user experience for consumer-facing products.
• Strong product intuition and ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.

Location: Seattle, WA (onsite)
Experience: 2+ years required (or PhD in related field)