ASE Compute - Lead SRE Software Engineer

Apple Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and dental coverage

Retirement benefits

Discounted products and services

Employee stock programs

Tuition reimbursement

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Apple Inc. in San Francisco is seeking a Lead SRE Software Engineer to own the architectural direction of Kubernetes controllers and namespace management, ensuring global scale and reliability.

You will drive uptime through SLOs, incident response, and collaboration with upstream Kubernetes communities, mentoring engineers, and building AI-assisted tooling for triage and automation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in CS or engineering.
• 8+ years in SRE/DevOps or infrastructure roles.
• Deep production experience with large-scale multi-tenant Kubernetes.
• Strong systems background across network, OS, container runtime, app.
• Expert-level Go with ownership of controllers/operators.
• Experience with configuration management at scale (Puppet/Ansible).
• Ability to drive cross-functional initiatives to completion.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture and direction for controllers and namespace management at global scale.
• Identify and fix reliability problems that bypass upstream defaults and automate loads.
• Set reliability standards: SLOs, error budgets, alerts, upgrades, runbooks.
• Take on-call, lead incident response for toughest production issues, drive post-incident actions.
• Represent Apple in upstream Kubernetes community, drive requirements through SIGs.
• Grow engineers through design/code reviews and mentoring.
• Lead cross-team efforts and advise service teams on platform capabilities and tradeoffs.

Skills

SRE/DevOps experience

Go programming

Kubernetes operations

Distributed systems

Configuration management (Puppet/AnsnI

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

Puppet/Ansible

Prometheus (observability)

Job description

ASE Compute - Lead SRE Software Engineer

San Francisco, 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

The ASE Compute team is looking for a senior SRE software engineer to own the technical direction of the Kubernetes internals that Apple's services run on. You will set the architecture for our controllers and namespace management infrastructure, strengthen the reliability of our Kubernetes services, and engage with the upstream community to drive Apple's requirements. You will write the hardest parts yourself, and raise what the rest of the team can build through design review, mentoring, and the tools you build. Service teams across Apple will come to you as the technical authority on what the platform can do and where it is going. The role also offers room to build AI-assisted tooling that accelerates triage, operational workflows, and infrastructure automation for the whole team.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and technical direction for our controllers and namespace management infrastructure, from design through production operation at global scale.
• Find and fix the reliability problems that only appear past the point where upstream defaults and community guidance stop working, build each fix into the platform so the same class of problem does not come back, and automate the operational load that cannot be designed away.
• Set the reliability standards for the platform: SLOs, error budgets, alerting philosophy, upgrade and rollout strategy, and the runbooks that follow from them.
• Take on-call, lead incident response for the hardest production issues, and see the post-incident follow-up work through so the same incident does not happen twice.
• Represent Apple in the upstream Kubernetes community, driving our requirements through design proposals and code in the relevant SIGs.
• Grow the engineers around you through design review, code review, and direct mentoring.
• Lead cross-team technical efforts through ambiguity, and advise partner service teams and their leadership on platform capabilities and tradeoffs, shaping both their designs and the Compute roadmap.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, an engineering-related field, or equivalent related experience
• 8+ years in a Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps, or Infrastructure focused role
• Deep experience operating large-scale, multi-tenant Kubernetes environments in production
• Strong systems background — comfortable troubleshooting across the full stack (network, OS, container runtime, application)
• Expert-level Go, with a track record of shipping and owning controllers or operators that other teams depend on.
• Experience with configuration management at scale (Puppet, Ansible, or equivalent)
• Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional initiatives to completion
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with third-party cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Familiarity with bare-metal provisioning and lifecycle management at datacenter scale
• Understanding of cloud-native observability (Prometheus, Thanos, Splunk, or similar)
• Experience running infrastructure as an internal managed service with defined SLAs

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 $184,700 and $324,800, 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.

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Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.