Senior iOS Engineer - Creativity Apps

Lex; Berlin; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple in Berlin is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to drive architectural design and implementation for next‑generation creative applications. You will tackle complex imaging workflows, ML integration, and performance optimization across a platform used by artists and professionals.

You should have 6+ years of production software experience, mastery of modern languages, and a track record of shipping user‑facing features.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional experience building and shipping production software.
• Mastery of software architecture patterns, data structures, and algorithms, especially in high‑performance contexts.
• Proficiency in Swift, C++, Rust, Objective‑C, Kotlin, Java, or similar languages.
• Strong product sense: a history of shipping features with ownership of user experience.
• Track record of effective cross‑functional collaboration with design, product, and partner engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Product‑Minded Feature Ownership: Own features end to end from idea to shipped experience.
• Architectural Leadership: Define and evolve architecture for complex imaging workflows, ensuring scalability and performance.
• Machine Learning Integration: Bring on‑device ML into the product with latency and memory trade‑offs in mind.
• Performance & Efficiency Optimization: Optimize performance and resource use for demanding workflows.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Work with design, product management, ML researchers, and other teams.
• Working Effectively with AI Tools: Use AI developer tools to prototype, test, and review code.
• Technical Mentorship & Growth: Mentor engineers and contribute to team culture.

Skills

Swift

C++

Architecture

Cross-functional collaboration

Product ownership

Tools

UIKit

SwiftUI

Core Animation

AVFoundation

Core Image

Metal

Job description

Summary

At Apple, we believe that groundbreaking ideas flourish when exceptional engineering meets innovative vision. We’re building the future of creative expression, and we need senior engineers who are passionate about crafting elegant, high-performance applications that empower users to bring their most ambitious ideas to life.

The Creativity Apps team needs your help shaping the next generation of creative editing tools. You’ll work on foundational technologies and user experiences that power applications used by millions of artists, designers, musicians, and innovators worldwide. This is a unique opportunity to apply your deep technical expertise to solve complex problems at scale, defining how people interact with powerful creative tools on Apple devices. You’ll contribute to the legacy of world‑class creative applications like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, GarageBand, Pixelmator, and Photomator.

We care more about how you think than which platform you’ve been thinking on. If you’re a senior engineer from a graphics, systems, media, or ML background who is excited to go deep on Apple platforms — and you’re the kind of person who obsesses over how a feature feels, not just whether it ships — we want to talk to you.

Description

As a Senior Software Engineer on our team, you will drive the architectural design, implementation, and evolution of core features for our next‑generation creative applications. We’re looking for a problem‑solver who excels in a dynamic environment, capable of both deep technical execution and strategic thinking across complex systems. You should be excited by the prospect of rapidly prototyping innovative concepts while simultaneously establishing robust, forward‑looking architectural foundations.

This role is for you if you thrive in a dynamic environment and are equally comfortable with deep technical execution and strategic thinking. You have an instinct for the nuances of photography and the challenges faced by visual creators. You are not just writing code; you are shaping the future of how people capture, edit, and share their most cherished visual memories.

Responsibilities

• Product‑Minded Feature Ownership: Owning features end to end; from a rough idea, through prototypes you put in front of real users, to a shipped experience you’re proud of. You’ll form your own opinions about what the product should do and defend them with taste, data, and working prototypes.
• Architectural Leadership: Defining and evolving the technical architecture for complex imaging workflows, ensuring scalability, performance, and future extensibility.
• Machine Learning Integration: Bringing ML capabilities into the product as first‑class features; integrating on‑device models into demanding pipelines, reasoning about accuracy, latency, and memory trade‑offs, and designing interfaces that stay predictable and trustworthy when the underlying model isn’t.
• Performance & Efficiency Optimization: Meticulously optimizing performance, resource utilization, and responsiveness across demanding workflows, so the experience stays fluid and delightful even with large assets and intensive operations.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Partnering closely with design, product management, domain experts, ML researchers, and other engineering teams — much of the interesting work on this team happens at the seams between groups, and you’ll be comfortable operating there.
• Working Effectively with AI Tools: Using modern AI developer tools fluently to move faster — exploring unfamiliar code, prototyping, generating tests, reviewing changes — with the judgment to know where they earn their keep and where they don’t. We expect the whole team to keep raising the bar on how we build, and we want your ideas on that.
• Technical Mentorship & Growth: Guiding and mentoring talented engineers, fostering strong development practices, and contributing to the growth and culture of the team.

Minimum Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional experience building and shipping production software
• Demonstrated mastery of software architecture patterns, data structures, and algorithms, especially in high‑performance contexts
• Deep proficiency in at least one modern systems or application language (Swift, C++, Rust, Objective‑C, Kotlin, Java, or similar), and a track record of picking up new platforms and languages quickly
• Strong product sense: a history of shipping features where you owned the user experience, not just the implementation
• Track record of effective cross‑functional collaboration with design, product, and partner engineering teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Apple’s core frameworks — UIKit, SwiftUI, Core Animation, AVFoundation, Core Image, and Metal (or equivalent graphics frameworks on other platforms)
• Experience integrating machine learning into shipping products — on‑device inference, model performance and memory trade‑offs, or building product experiences around probabilistic model output
• Fluency with AI‑assisted development tools and an interest in helping the team use them well
• Extensive experience identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in client applications, with a focus on UI responsiveness, memory management, power efficiency, and real‑time processing
• Experience developing applications that involve complex media manipulation, rendering, or content creation workflows for professionals or enthusiasts (e.g., video editing, music production, graphic design, or advanced image processing)
• Demonstrated ability to technically lead projects, mentor engineers, and drive cross‑functional initiatives from concept to delivery in a fast‑paced environment

At Apple, we're not all the same. And that's our greatest strength. We draw on the differences in who we are, what we've experienced, and how we think. Because to create products that serve everyone, we believe in including everyone. Therefore, we are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally. We will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations.

At Apple, we believe accessibility is a fundamental human right. You’ll find that idea reflected in everything here — in our culture, our benefits and our digital tools. By welcoming as many perspectives as possible, we help you build a career where you feel like you belong.

Learn about accessibility in Apple’s workplace

Role Number: 200685888-0399