Wireless PHY Systems Engineer

Wireless PHY Systems Engineer

Join Apple's Wireless SoC team — one of the most innovative and high-impact groups in the industry — where we define next-generation modem architectures, develop cutting-edge physical-layer algorithms, and invent embedded DSP solutions that power products like Air Pods, Apple Watch and iPhone. As a Wireless PHY Systems Engineer, you will play a central role in building end-to-end simulation frameworks for sophisticated wireless systems.

Your work will span the full signal chain from propagation channel modeling and RF/antenna behavior to PHY & MAC protocols and signal processing algorithms. Application areas include Bluetooth-based wireless audio and ultra-wideband (UWB) sensing — technologies that define the user experiences Apple is known for. This is a rare opportunity to work at the intersection of wireless systems research, algorithm development, and silicon engineering, with direct impact on products used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

• Design and develop end-to-end simulation frameworks encompassing propagation channel models, RF/antenna abstractions and PHY/MAC protocol stacks.
• Invent, derive, and evaluate physical-layer algorithms and DSP techniques for Bluetooth, UWB, and other wireless protocols.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to model and visualize system performance across the full signal chain.
• Process and analyze large volumes of field and simulation data; develop clear, user-friendly visualizations of complex results including measurement accuracies, system latencies, and protocol performance metrics.
• Partner with digital and analog design teams to translate algorithm insights into hardware-ready specifications, supporting fixed-point design and RTL vector generation.
• Support lab bring-up and validation activities, including FPGA/silicon testing, PHY/RF/MAC debugging, calibration procedures, and lab equipment operation.
• Utilize AI/ML techniques across all aspects of the role — including algorithm design and optimization, simulation framework development, post-processing and visualization of large-scale datasets, and lab-based testing and debugging workflows.

• Bachelor's degree.
• Hands-on software programming skills for system modeling and simulation, with required proficiency in MATLAB and C/C++.
• Experience collecting, processing, and visualizing large-scale field and simulation datasets, including performance metrics such as measurement accuracy, latency, and throughput.
• Familiarity with analog/RF impairments common in wireless systems (e.g., phase noise, IQ imbalance, nonlinearity).
• Experience with or knowledge of wireless standards such as Bluetooth, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), or other wireless protocols.

• MSEE/Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Digital Communications, Signal Processing, or equivalent.
• Deep understanding in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Wireless Communications, with hands-on experience in wireless chip or modem development.
• Strong systems-level understanding of wireless architectures, including the ability to reason about cross-layer dependencies between RF, PHY, MAC, and higher protocol layers.
• Experience applying AI/ML methods to wireless systems problems — such as learned channel estimation, or ML-based anomaly detection in simulation data, etc.
• Proficiency with Python and data science/ML libraries (e.g., Num Py, PyTorch, scikit-learn) for simulation automation and AI-assisted analysis workflows.
• Experience with fixed-point design, RTL vector generation, and/or High-Level Synthesis (HLS).
• Experience in lab FPGA/silicon bring-up, PHY/RF/MAC testing, and use of RF lab equipment.
• Experience with simulation automation, regression frameworks, or CI/CD pipelines for large-scale system simulation.
• Prior contributions to wireless standards bodies or industry consortia (e.g., IEEE, Bluetooth SIG, FiRa Consortium).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with a track record of presenting complex technical results to cross-functional audiences.

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This…