Apple Services Engineering (ASE) Compute - Software Engineering Manager

Apple Inc.; Cupertino, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; USD 238,000 - 356,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and dental coverage

Retirement benefits

Discounted products and services

Tuition reimbursement and relocation

Job summary

Apple Inc. is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Manager for ASE Compute in Cupertino to lead infrastructure and SRE efforts at scale. You will manage a multi-geography team responsible for core compute controllers, proxy services, and job execution agents to ensure high availability and performance.

You will drive capacity planning, incident management, release engineering, observability, and modernization while championing AI-enabled automation across the platform.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years of experience managing infrastructure, SRE, or platform engineering teams.
• Proven track record leading on-call organizations with structured incident management, escalation procedures, and post-incident reviews.
• Strong background in cloud infrastructure, compute orchestration, and scale provisioning.

Responsibilities

• Champion AI-powered tooling and automation to improve incident triage and operational toil.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of Software and SRE engineers across geographies.
• Establish and maintain a 24/7 on-call rotation with clear escalation paths and SLAs.
• Oversee release engineering and deployment automation including CI/CD pipelines and canary deployments.
• Manage modernization initiatives including Kubernetes control plane operations and migrations.
• Drive incident management excellence with post-incident reviews and production readiness.

Skills

Team leadership

Cloud infrastructure

SRE principles

Incident management

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes

OpenStack

KVM/hypervisor

Chef

Ansible

Terraform

Salt

Job description

Apple Services Engineering (ASE) Compute - Software Engineering Manager

Cupertino, California, United States Software and Services

People at Apple don't just build products — they craft the kind of experience that has revolutionized entire industries. The diverse collection of our people and their ideas inspire innovation in everything we do. Imagine what you could do here! Join Apple, and help us leave the world better than we found it.The Apple Service Engineering (ASE) team builds and provides systems and infrastructure that power Apple's services (such as iCloud, Apple Music, Apple Intelligence, and Maps). We are the foundation on which Apple's software developers build the products that our customers love. Our services have to scale globally, stay highly available, and "just work." If you love designing, engineering, and running systems and infrastructure that will help millions of customers, then this is the place for you!

Description

Apple Service Engineering (ASE)'s Compute team is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead a team of Infrastructure and Site Reliability Engineers responsible for operating and scaling large-scale batch compute infrastructure across Apple's data centers. You will manage a team that operates core compute controllers, proxy services, job execution agents, and supporting infrastructure across multiple geographies — ensuring platform availability, reliability, and performance at Apple scale.You will drive strategic initiatives spanning multi-datacenter capacity planning, incident management, release engineering, observability, and infrastructure modernization. This role requires a leader who can balance operational excellence with engineering innovation, establishing SLOs, driving production readiness, and building the automation and tooling that enable a growing platform to scale efficiently. You will champion the use of AI to accelerate incident triage, improve operational workflows, drive capacity efficiency, and enhance team productivity across all domains.

Responsibilities

• Champion AI-powered tooling and automation to improve incident triage, reduce operational toil, drive capacity efficiency, and accelerate engineering workflows
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of Software and SRE engineers across multiple geographies, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Establish and maintain a sustainable 24/7 on-call rotation with clear escalation paths, severity definitions, and response time SLAs across US and UK locations
• Oversee release engineering and deployment automation, including CI/CD pipelines, canary deployments, and zero-downtime rollout strategies
• Manage infrastructure modernization initiatives including Kubernetes control plane operations, database migrations, and configuration management evolution
• Drive incident management excellence — including post-incident reviews, preventive measures, and production readiness reviews for all releases

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience managing infrastructure, SRE, or platform engineering teams operating large-scale distributed systems
• Proven track record of building and leading on-call organizations with structured incident management, escalation procedures, and post-incident review processes
• Strong technical background in cloud infrastructure, compute orchestration, and bare metal provisioning at scale
• Experience with Kubernetes, OpenStack, KVM/hypervisor technologies, and Infrastructure as Code tools (Chef, Ansible, Terraform, or Salt)
• Deep understanding of SRE principles including SLOs, error budgets, capacity planning, and release engineering
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to influence across teams and levels
• Demonstrated ability to recruit, develop, and retain high-performing engineering talent

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience leveraging AI and machine learning to improve operational efficiency, incident management, or infrastructure automation
• Experience managing or scaling batch compute, job scheduling, or HPC platforms
• Proficiency in Go or Python with a strong automation-first mindset
• Familiarity with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, distributed tracing) and centralized logging at scale
• Experience operating large-scale multi-tenant Infrastructure as a Managed Service
• Experience managing geographically distributed teams and follow-the-sun on-call models
• Track record of driving capacity efficiency initiatives resulting in measurable cost optimization

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 $237,600 and $356,400, 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
• reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition
• 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

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