Software Engineering Technical Lead, Wallet Identity Server

Software Engineering Technical Lead, Wallet Identity Server

Cupertino, California, United States Software and Services

At Apple, great ideas quickly become phenomenal products, services, and customer experiences. Join us in building the future of digital identity! With IDs in Wallet, users can use their IDs in person, in app, and on the web. We build the services that make this possible, working across distributed systems, cryptography, and security with a focus on user privacy and reliability.

We are actively shaping the digital identity ecosystem through standards like ISO 18013/23220 and the W3C Digital Credentials API.

You will help architect and evolve the digital identity platform that powers IDs in Wallet, shaping how it scales and stays resilient as we add new features and partner integrations. Working closely with server and client teams, you will design and build services and APIs for partner onboarding, digital credential proofing, issuance, and lifecycle, while continuing to raise the bar on scalability and resilience.

• Design, build, and operate services for scalability, resilience, security, and privacy, with fault isolation and graceful degradation at partner integrations.
• Provide strategic technical direction for the digital identity services platform.
• Collaborate closely with platform teams across the broader Wallet ecosystem to ensure alignment across shared systems and interfaces.
• Champion technical excellence and best engineering practices across all identity services.
• Drive technical discussions, write specifications, mentor peers, and review code and designs.
• Partner closely with standards engineering on digital credential protocols.

• 10+ years of industry experience as a software engineer, including 3+ years as a tech lead/architect.
• Extensive experience architecting, building, shipping, and scaling mission‑critical distributed systems on the JVM.
• Track record of driving architecture and technical roadmaps across multiple engineers, services, or teams.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems fundamentals and the trade‑offs in consistency, latency, throughput, and failure modes.
• A commitment to engineering excellence, with curiosity to evaluate and advocate for new technologies and patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architectural and cross‑functional decisions, build strong working relationships across teams, and drive complex projects from conception to production.
• Clear and effective communicator across technical and non‑technical audiences, including senior leadership and external partners.

• Strong Dev Ops and platform engineering experience — containerization and orchestration, cloud‑native services, infrastructure‑as‑code, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Open Telemetry).
• Experience with durable workflow orchestration platforms (e.g., Temporal).
• Significant hands‑on experience with relational and No
  
  SQL databases at scale (e.g., Aurora, Dynamo
  
  DB).
• Solid understanding of security, privacy, and applied cryptography — PKI, HPKE, certificate management, JWT, and secure key handling.
• Experience with Java/Kotlin, Spring, and gRPC.
• Proven experience onboarding and integrating with external partners.
• Hands‑on experience using generative AI tools to accelerate software development.
• Familiarity with digital credential standards such as ISO 18013/23220, W3C Digital Credentials API, OpenID4
  
  VCI, or related ecosystems.

Base pay for this role ranges from $212,000 to $318,400, determined by 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. Employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in the Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You will also receive comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and reimbursement for certain educational expenses—including tuition.

This role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation.

Apple is an equal‑opportunity employer committed to inclusion and diversity. All applicants are evaluated without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.

Apple believes accessibility is a fundamental human right. The workplace reflects this commitment, providing tools and accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

Apple accepts applications for this posting on an ongoing basis.