Data Scientist, AI/ML Model Quality

Apple Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple is seeking a data scientist focused on AI/ML model quality across Wallet, Payments, and Commerce. You will own data quality health, validation pipelines, and observability metrics that underpin trusted models used by hundreds of millions of users.

You will collaborate with ML Engineering, Data Engineering, Privacy, and Legal teams to surface actionable insights and ensure models are trained, evaluated, and deployed on high-quality data.

Qualifications

• Degree with strong quantitative focus and hands-on ML quality experience.
• 3+ years in data science with emphasis on data quality and observability.
• Proficiency in Python, SQL, and large-scale data analysis.
• Experience with GenAI or LLM systems and telemetry instrumentation.

Responsibilities

• Curate and maintain gold-standard datasets for model evaluation and validation.
• Audit training data for bias and data drift prior to deployment.
• Define and report data quality metrics for engineering audiences.
• Create automated data quality rules with CI/CD integration.
• Own ML observability metrics across conventional ML and GenAI systems.
• Develop dashboards and reporting workflows for real-time model health.
• Analyze telemetry across GenAI workflows to surface actionable insights.
• Identify degradation patterns and propose actionable improvements.

Skills

Statistical analysis

Data quality

Model evaluation

Observability

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

MS or PhD preferred

Tools

Python

Pandas

NumPy

Scikit-learn

SQL

PySpark

Spark

Job description

Austin, Texas, United States Software and Services

Would you like to contribute to Machine Learning and Generative AI technologies? Are you passionate about the integrity of the data that powers AI systems at scale? Do you believe that trustworthy data is the foundation of every great model? We truly believe it is! We are defining what exceptional data quality looks like for machine learning across Wallet, Payments, and Commerce. As a Data Scientist, AI/ML Model Quality, you will build and maintain intelligent systems, validation frameworks, and monitoring pipelines that keep our data ecosystem healthy — ensuring that every model we build is trained, evaluated, and deployed on data we can trust. Your work sits at the foundation of every ML feature that reaches hundreds of millions of users. You'll work at the intersection of statistical rigor and production systems, collaborating closely with ML Engineering, Data Engineering, Privacy, and Legal teams. This unique opportunity puts you at the center of ML and AI quality — owning the health of training and validation datasets, defining and analyzing observability metrics to surface actionable product insights, and leading telemetry analysis across GenAI workflows — ensuring Apple's financial features are built on the highest-quality data, whether powering conventional ML models or the latest generative AI systems.

Description

The ideal candidate is a detail-obsessed data scientist who understands that model quality starts long before training — it starts with the data. You have strong statistical instincts, know how silent degradation and data drift manifest in production systems, and can translate raw quality signals into insights that drive real decisions. You will own the health of the data ecosystem that underpins ML and GenAI features across Wallet, Payments, and Commerce — building validation frameworks, defining observability metrics, and leading telemetry analysis that keeps every model trained, evaluated, and monitored on data teams can trust. Your work sits at the foundation of every ML feature that reaches hundreds of millions of users.

Responsibilities

• Curate, analyze, and maintain gold-standard ground-truth datasets for model evaluation and continuous validation across both ML and GenAI systems.
• Audit training data for systemic bias and fairness gaps prior to model deployment; establish ongoing analytical checks to catch bias introduced by data drift over time.
• Define, track, and report key data quality metrics — completeness, accuracy, timeliness, validity — for engineering and leadership audiences.
• Design and define automated data quality rules and thresholds, partnering with Data Engineering to ensure these checks are integrated into model development and CI/CD workflows
• Define and own ML observability metrics — model performance, output distributions, training-serving skew, silent degradation and feature drift — translating raw production signals into actionable insights for engineering and product teams.
• Design and develop observability dashboards and reporting workflows that give stakeholders a consistent, real-time view of model health across both conventional ML and GenAI systems.
• Define and analyze telemetry across GenAI workflows, tracking quality signals such as output coherence, latency, task completion rates, and regression patterns.
• Identify degradation patterns and domain-specific failure modes in GenAI systems through systematic telemetry analysis, translating findings into concrete recommendations for model and data teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• A Bachelor's degree with exceptional hands-on experience in ML/AI model quality or applied research or a M.S or Ph.D in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related quantitative field is strongly preferred.
• 3+ years of experience in data science or a closely related analytical role, with a strong focus on data quality, model evaluation, or ML observability in production environments.
• Proficiency in Python (Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn) and SQL for complex data analysis, metric creation, and validation.
• Experience querying and analyzing large-scale datasets using distributed computing frameworks (e.g., PySpark, Spark, or distributed SQL).
• Solid understanding of statistical methods — hypothesis testing, distribution analysis, data drift detection, and statistical process control.
• Experience in defining and tracking ML model health metrics in production — model performance monitoring, feature drift detection, and observability instrumentation.
• Familiarity with GenAI or LLM systems, including common quality failure modes, output evaluation approaches, and telemetry instrumentation.
• Strong communication skills — ability to translate complex data quality findings and model health risks into clear, actionable insights for both engineering and non-technical stakeholde

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with data visualization and dashboarding tools (e.g., Tableau, Apache Superset, Databricks) to present complex ML telemetry.
• Familiarity with LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g. LangSmith) or techniques like LLM-as-a-judge.
• Experience with Bayesian or causal graph-based approaches to synthetic data generation.
• Familiarity with confidence calibration techniques and uncertainty quantification.
• Experience with ML monitoring or observability platforms (e.g., MLflow, Weights & Biases, or equivalent).
• Experience working with privacy-constrained data or under regulatory compliance frameworks (GDPR, DMA).
• Background in financial services, fintech, or consumer payment products.

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.