Engineering Manager, AI Developer Tools

Seattle, Washington, United States Software and Services

At Apple, we don't just build products — we craft experiences that redefine entire ecosystems. The Developer Experience team delivers the essential tools and systems that empower hundreds of engineering teams across Apple to build and deploy services with speed, efficiency, and confidence. We’re transforming how developers work by weaving intelligent AI capabilities directly into their workflows. We’re looking for a technical leader who can build and lead the team making this vision real — someone who lives at the intersection of AI agent development, developer productivity measurement, and engineering excellence.

The Developer Experience team is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead a team building the next generation of AI-powered developer tooling that hundreds of Apple engineering teams rely on daily. You’ll hire, develop, and lead engineers who design and ship intelligent agents that transform the software development lifecycle — from initial development through testing, deployment, and beyond. You’ll set the technical direction for a portfolio of AI-powered products: coding agents, root cause analysis agents, deployment agents, code review agents, MCP servers, Slack integrations, CLI tools, and APIs that serve both human developers and autonomous systems.

Your team will build production-grade AI capabilities, measure their impact through DORA and SPACE metrics, and iterate based on direct user research with engineering teams across Apple. You’ll set CI/CD policies and standards that balance velocity with safety, working with cross-functional partners to establish guardrails for AI-assisted deployments r team's work will make AI capabilities a seamless, integrated part of how developers build services s role requires both hands‑on technical depth in agentic AI systems and proven leadership in building high‑performing engineering teams.

You’ll partner with project managers, peer engineering leaders, and senior stakeholders to align your team's roadmap with organizational priorities while maintaining the autonomy to make bold technical bets.

• Build, lead, and develop a team of engineers who ship AI‑powered developer tools — planning agents, coding agents, testing agents, deployment agents, operations agents, and the APIs and integrations that hundreds of engineering teams depend on daily.
• Define and track DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, MTTR) and SPACE metrics (satisfaction, performance, activity, communication, efficiency) to measure and improve developer productivity across Apple.
• Set CI/CD policies and standards for AI‑assisted development workflows, balancing deployment velocity with safety and compliance requirements.
• Drive technical strategy for scalable backend services and APIs in Java and Python that support developer efficiency workflows across Apple.
• Conduct user research with engineering teams to identify pain points, validate solutions, and prioritize the roadmap based on measured developer impact.
• Evolve platform architectures for reliability, maintainability, and performance at scale, making build‑vs‑buy decisions and managing technical debt.
• Establish engineering excellence standards — code review practices, testing strategies, operational readiness — and foster a culture of quality and continuous improvement.
• Recruit, mentor, and retain top engineering talent with expertise in AI agent development and developer tooling.

• 1+ years of engineering management experience leading teams building backend systems or developer tools.
• 5+ years of recent hands‑on software engineering experience, with strong fundamentals in Java and Python.
• Deep familiarity with AI agent frameworks and patterns — Lang Chain, Claude Agent SDK, Pydantic AI, or equivalent — with the ability to evaluate architectural tradeoffs and guide implementation decisions.
• Experience defining and using developer productivity metrics (DORA, SPACE, or similar frameworks) to drive measurable improvements.
• Track record of setting CI/CD policies and infrastructure automation standards for…