Senior Software Engineer, Automation & Developer Platforms

Senior Software Engineer, Intelligent Automation & Developer Platforms

Cupertino, California, United States Software and Services

At Apple, we work every day to create products that enrich people’s lives. The Apple Ads team builds privacy-focused advertising platforms that operate at massive scale across Apple Services. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help build intelligent internal platforms, automation frameworks, and developer tools that improve quality, and engineering productivity across Apple Ads. This is a hands‑on engineering role focused on building AI/LLM‑powered internal tooling and automation systems across mobile, backend, API, and data platform ecosystems.

The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering fundamentals with experience building scalable automation, developer infrastructure, and full‑stack engineering platforms.

In this role, you will help build AI/LLM‑powered internal tools that act as the intelligent immune system for Apple Ads—continuously understanding signals across products, detecting risk patterns early, and enabling autonomous validation and recovery workflows before issues impact users. You will work on unifying fragmented solutions across multiple Apple Ads business lines into a single intelligence layer integrated with a unified validation platform, replacing bespoke tooling with a scalable and adaptive ecosystem accessible through prompts, APIs, and MCP servers.

This role is focused on leveraging existing AI models and platforms to build intelligent internal developer tools rather than developing or training AI/ML models. We are looking for candidates who can operate effectively in ambiguous environments, drive clarity across complex problem spaces, and influence cross‑functional teams through strong technical leadership and excellent communication skills, including experience partnering with senior engineers and engineering leadership.

• 10+ years of experience building scalable test automation frameworks and leading QE strategy across complex distributed systems spanning web, mobile, APIs, and data platforms
• Strong programming expertise in Python or Java, with deep experience in modern automation frameworks such as Playwright or Selenium, mobile testing ecosystems including iOS/XCTest/XCUITest, and distributed systems such as Hadoop, Hive, and HDFS
• Proven ability to drive adoption of emerging technologies such as AI/LLMs, MCP, and agentic systems to enable intelligent automation and self‑serve developer workflows
• Expertise in debugging complex system‑level issues, validating APIs and data pipelines, and driving root cause analysis across integrated services and platforms
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering standards, operate effectively in ambiguous environments, and collaborate with senior engineers and engineering leadership across cross‑functional teams

• Experience designing AI driven or agent based automation systems, including MCP aligned architectures
• Experience building scalable validation strategies for data platforms, including streaming systems (Kafka, Spark)
• Strong background in API testing, data validation, and building self service QE platforms
• Experience in advertising technology or similar large scale, high complexity ecosystems
• Proven track record of leading cross org initiatives and driving alignment across multiple teams

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 $184,700 and $324,800, 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…