ML Research Engineer, Apple Services Engineering, Search

Seattle, Washington, United States Software and Services

The Apple Services Engineering (ASE) team is one of the most exciting examples of Apple’s long-held passion for combining art and technology. These are the people who power the App Store, Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Books. And they do it on a massive scale, meeting Apple’s high expectations with high performance to deliver a huge variety of entertainment in over 35 languages to more than 150 countries.

These engineers build secure, end-to-end solutions. They develop the custom software used to process all the creative work, the tools that providers use to deliver that media, all the server-side systems, and the APIs for many Apple services. Thanks to Apple’s unique integration of hardware, software, and services, engineers here partner to get behind a single unified vision. That vision always includes a deep commitment to strengthening Apple’s privacy policy, one of Apple’s core values.

Although services are a bigger part of Apple’s business than ever before, these teams remain small, nimble, and cross‑functional, offering greater exposure to the array of opportunities here.

• YOU WILL
• Have a major impact on the way people search & discover on Apple devices worldwide.
• Think through complex research problems, simplify where necessary, invent when needed, to drive a principled vision from thought to reality.
• Present key technical and novel research work in public forums.
• Conduct AB Tests to ensure we objectively measure improvements.
• Be responsible for improving search recall and ranking.
• Use big data technology to evaluate and prioritize content discovery features.
• Collaborate with other world‑class engineers, researchers, and statisticians to ensure that features and models are functioning at or above expected performance levels.
• Develop complex components in large scale distributed systems using high‑performance programming languages (Java/Go/Rust/Scala/Python etc)
• Design & Implement solutions for automated unit and integration tests that enable continuous integration and delivery.
• Ensure successful deployment of features, code, data, and models to production.
• Support search on all devices (macOS, iOS, tvOS, watch
  
  OS, vision
  
  OS, Siri/Home Pod, and more) globally in languages from Arabic to Russian and everything in between.

• Strong industry experience with one or more of the following: search, classification, regression, recommendation systems, ranking systems, fraud detection, online advertising, or related
• MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related subject area
• Knowledge of ML models using Transformers, Large Language Models, Reinforcement Learning, Tensor Flow, and Py Torch

• Deep understanding of search and information retrieval fundamentals including indexing, query understanding,
• 2+ years of relevant industry experience
• Experience in training and evaluating machine learning models using Python/PyTorch/Tensor Flow
• Experience building big data pipelines with Scala, and Spark
• Experience in distributed computing, micro‑services architecture, search and related technologies.
• Experience with GoLang is a plus
• Familiarity with A/B experimentation and data/data‑driven product development
• Experience leading technical aspects for complex multi‑functional projects
• Passion. Our customers love what we do at Apple and we want the same from our engineers

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 $139,500 and $210,100, 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…