AI Data Engineer

Apple Inc.; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 207,400 - 311,700; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock-based compensation

Medical & dental coverage

Retirement benefits

Discounted products

Educational expense reimbursement

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Apple Inc. is seeking an AI Data Engineer in Cupertino to design and maintain data pipelines powering AI applications within Legal Operations. You will ingest data from matter management, eBilling, CLM, and document management systems, transform into AI-ready formats, and expose data via APIs.

As part of the AI team, you will ensure data reliability, quality, and accessibility for AI consumption, while collaborating with AI/ML colleagues on data requirements and governance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or higher in computer science, data science, information systems, or related field; Master's preferred.
• 4+ years in data engineering for AI applications.
• Strong SQL and Python for data engineering and transformations.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain data pipelines ingesting from legal systems to AI apps.
• Load vector databases, document stores, and knowledge graphs for AI retrieval.
• Develop and maintain APIs exposing structured and unstructured data.

Skills

SQL

Python

Data pipelines

REST APIs

CI/CD

Team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's in CS/Data Science

Master's preferred

Tools

dbt

Fivetran

Airflow

Snowflake

Databricks

BigQuery

Job description

Cupertino, California, United States Corporate Functions

Imagine what you could do here. At Apple, new ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job and there's no telling what you could accomplish. Are you passionate about building the data pipelines that make AI systems fast, accurate, and reliable? Do you thrive on engineering clean data flows that connect enterprise systems to intelligent applications? Can you build infrastructure that's both production-grade and purpose-built for AI consumption? The Applied Data Science team within Legal Operations is building production-grade AI for a global legal organization — and every AI system is only as good as the data flowing into it. The AI Data Engineer owns the pipelines, data feeds, and integration infrastructure that ensure AI applications have the right data, in the right form, at the right time.

Description

The AI Data Engineer builds and maintains the data infrastructure that powers AI applications across Legal Operations. You will design and implement data pipelines that ingest from legal systems, transform data into AI-ready formats, load vector databases and other AI stores, and expose data services through APIs. This role is embedded within the AI team and works in close partnership with AI and data colleagues to ensure AI systems have reliable, high-quality data at every stage.

• Design and implement data pipelines that ingest, transform, and deliver data from legal systems (matter management, eBilling, CLM, document management) to AI applications
• Build and maintain pipelines that load and refresh vector databases, document stores, and graph databases used by AI retrieval systems
• Engineer data transformations that prepare legal data for AI consumption — chunking, embedding generation, metadata enrichment, and schema normalization
• Build upstream and downstream integrations with MCP (Model Context Protocol), vector databases, and knowledge graphs to support context engineering and AI retrieval systems
• Develop and maintain APIs that expose structured and unstructured data to AI applications and analytics tools
• Implement data quality checks and validation at pipeline ingestion points to ensure AI systems receive reliable, complete data
• Build monitoring and alerting for pipeline health, data freshness, and load failures
• Understand AI data access patterns and optimize data delivery for AI performance
• Integrate with the semantic layer — consuming entity resolution outputs, taxonomy mappings, and enriched datasets to ground AI applications
• Implement ETL/ELT processes using dbt, Fivetran, or similar tools with a focus on reliability and maintainability
• Document pipeline designs, data contracts, and operational runbooks

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience); Master's degree preferred
• 4+ years of experience in data engineering related to AI application
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python for data engineering and transformation
• Experience with cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or similar)
• Experience with ETL/ELT tools (dbt, Fivetran, Airflow, or similar)
• Experience building and maintaining REST APIs
• Understanding of data modeling and data transformation best practices
• Experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD practices
• Ability to work closely with AI/ML teams and understand their data requirements

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma), embedding generation pipelines, document stores (MongoDB or similar) and their integration patterns
• Understanding of RAG, MCP architectures, context engineering principles, and how data quality affects retrieval performance
• Experience with semantic layer technologies (dbt Semantic Layer, Cube, AtScale), knowledge graphs (Neo4j), or ontology design
• Experience with streaming or event-driven data architectures (Kafka or similar)
• Familiarity with legal operations data (matter management, eBilling, CLM, document management)

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 $207,400 and $311,700, 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.

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.

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.

Learn about reasonable accommodations for job applicants.

Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.