Senior Platform Engineer, AI Evaluation Research Systems

Job description

**Role Number:** 200615375-3337

**Summary**
Do you want to help shape the future of AI at Apple?

Our team, part of Apple Services Engineering's (ASE) Human Centered AI Research organization, pioneers new methods and tools for AI evaluation.

We are seeking a Senior or Staff Platform Engineer to develop systems that will transform evaluation research and methods into compounding advantages for teams across our division.

You will help build tools that accelerate our team's research and empower the entire organization to build and evaluate AI more effectively.

As a technical leader, you'll help set engineering standards for evaluation systems across ASE and mentor researchers and engineers on best practices for AI tooling.

**Description**
In this role, you will architect and build core evaluation frameworks, systems, and tools that empower applied research and accelerate AI development.

Your work will help researchers and developers close the gap between prototypes and production-grade capabilities, giving them a stable foundation to build on and enabling them iterate more quickly and produce more durable work.

The tools you will develop will serve as the primary delivery mechanism for evaluation research innovations, distributing them to partner teams across the organization.

This will involve deep collaboration with researchers, developers, engineers, and other users to understand their needs and ensure that solutions are easy to adopt and scalable.

This is an opportunity to help build foundational systems and tools that translate cutting-edge methods and proven best practices into reliable, production-ready tools for development teams across ASE and partner organizations.

**Minimum Qualifications**

+ Demonstrated mastery in engineering robust, maintainable, and operable software systems
+ Deep expertise in Python, with demonstrated excellence in designing high-quality, extensible APIs and SDKs
+ Deep experience (5+ years) in platform engineering or adjacent roles, with a proven track record of designing, building, and scaling internal or developer-facing platforms
+ Demonstrated track record of driving adoption of developer tools, with experience gathering user feedback and iterating on developer experience
+ Experience with ML development lifecycle and ML platform development, including understanding of model training, evaluation, and deployment workflows
+ Understanding of standard AI stack components such as retrieval systems (vector databases, hybrid search, etc.), model serving platforms, and LLM application frameworks
+ Proven ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams including researchers, engineers, product owners, and leadership

**Preferred Qualifications**

+ Practical experience building or evaluating applications powered by large language models (e.g., using agentic frameworks, rag, or similar techniques)
+ Experience designing platforms or frameworks that shorten the path from prototype to production
+ Familiarity with distributed data processing (e.g., Spark, Dask, PySpark) and large-scale compute for AI workloads
+ Experience with inference optimization frameworks (e.g. vLLM, TensorRT-LLM)
+ Experience with LLM orchestration frameworks (e.g. LangChain, LangGraph)
+ Contributions to or deep engagement with open-source developer tooling or ML frameworks
+ Experience mentoring other engineers and raising a team’s engineering standards

**Pay & Benefits**
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 $201,300 and $302,200, 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 dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition.

Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation.

Learn more about Apple Benefits.

(https://www.apple.com/careers/us/benefits.html)

Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity.

We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.

Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12ScreenRdr.pdf) .

Required Skill Profession

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