Engineering Program Manager: Speech Understanding / Generation

Apple, Inc.; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 145,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and dental coverage

Employee stock programs

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Apple, Inc. is seeking an Engineering Program Manager for Speech Understanding and Generation in Cupertino, CA.

You will drive delivery of Siri speech technologies spanning understanding and generation, collaborating with Siri engineering teams and cross-functional partners to bring state‑of‑the‑art capabilities to life across Apple’s ecosystem. The role emphasizes creating clear plans, prioritizing requirements, and delivering high-impact features, while scaling adoption and aligning teams to

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software project or program management for consumer products.
• Experience with software powered by statistical learning (machine learning and/or deep-learning), including practical exposure to foundation models (e.g., LLMs, multimodal, or generative AI technologies)
• Excellent project management skills including project structuring and managing multiple work streams cross functionally
• Proven track record of leading and shipping multiple complex, cross-functional projects at the same time.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, identify the most critical/urgent work, set priorities, and defend trade-offs.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including negotiation, presentation, and influence.
• Experience working cross-functionally with people at all levels of seniority & leadership.
• BS/MS/PhD with a focus in CS/CE/EE or equivalent experience
• Experience working with voice assistant technologies
• Frontier models / ML pipelines experience

Responsibilities

• Create and manage project schedules with clear dependencies, critical path and systematic methodology to communicate status.
• Manage risks and mitigations, and re‑plan as events warrant.
• Drive alignment across the organization and between teams.
• Proactively identify issues and solutions, marshal resources necessary to attack and resolve.
• Coordinate discussions and break down complex issues to drive engineering and design alignment with support from project team.
• Drive on time delivery and deployment, identifying development and feasibility needs, establishing achievements for checkpoints and status updates.
• Continuously improve: reflect on how the team operates and propose new ways to work to increase value delivery to customers.

Skills

Project management

Cross-functional leadership

Communication

Ambiguity navigation

ML fundamentals

Presentation

Education

BS/MS/PhD in CS/CE/EE

Tools

Agile

Job description

Engineering Program Manager: Speech Understanding / Generation

Cupertino, California, United States Software and Services

At Apple, new ideas have a way of becoming extraordinary products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Do you love taking on challenges that create a positive impact for millions of people?The Siri Speech team at Apple is building groundbreaking technology and defining the future of speech experiences. We are looking for an experienced Engineering Program Manager to lead high-impact initiatives that touch products and features across the Apple ecosystem—from Dictation and Siri Voices to FaceTime Live Captions, Voicemail Transcription, AirPods Live Translation, and Live Rewind on Apple Watch. If you’re excited about shipping state‑of‑the‑art speech and AI technology to millions of users daily, come help lead the charge!We’re looking for a senior engineering program manager with a proven track record of building and maintaining complex software platforms, tools and processes that help deliver new end-to-end consumer experiences.

Description

As an Engineering Program Manager on the Siri Speech team, you will drive the delivery and adoption of Apple’s core speech technologies, spanning speech understanding and generation. In this role, you will collaborate closely with Siri engineering teams and cross‑functional partners across Apple to bring state‑of‑the‑art speech capabilities to life. You will serve as a domain expert—synthesizing partner requirements, prioritizing critical needs, and integrating them into the broader Speech roadmap. You will be responsible for shipping high-impact speech features in Siri, and scaling adoption across internal and external use cases, and championing partner team success across the ecosystem.Plan: Create and manage project schedules with clear dependencies, critical path and systematic methodology to communicate status. Manage risks and mitigations, and re‑plan as events warrant. Drive alignment across the organization and between teamsProblem solve: Proactively identify issues and solutions, and marshal resources necessary to attack and resolve. Coordinate with teams to identify issues, prioritize tasks and track risks to schedule and product quality, including cross‑functional dependenciesCommunicate: Provide clear, timely and objective communication, including regular program status updates and critical issues as needed to executive teamCoordinate: Coordinate discussions and break down complex issues into discussion topics to drive engineering and design alignment with support from project team, maintaining an orientation toward teamwork and collaborationExecute: Drive on time delivery and deployment, identifying development and feasibility needs, establishing achievements for checkpoints and status updatesContinuously Improve: Reflect on how the team operates, propose and implement new ways to work in order to improve the rate at which the team delivers value to customers.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software project or program management for consumer products
• Experience with software powered by statistical learning (machine learning and/or deep-learning), including practical exposure to foundation models (e.g., LLMs, multimodal, or generative AI technologies)
• Excellent project management skills including project structuring and managing multiple work streams cross functionally
• Proven track record of leading and shipping multiple complex, cross‑functional projects at the same time.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, identify the most critical/urgent work, set priorities, and defend trade‑offs.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including negotiation, presentation, and influence.
• Experience working cross‑functionally with people at all levels of seniority & leadership.
• BS/MS/PhD with a focus in CS/CE/EE or equivalent experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with voice assistant technologies.
• Direct experience or exposure working with frontier models, advanced model evaluation, pre‑training/fine‑tuning pipelines, or state‑of‑the‑art AI architectures
• Familiarity with ML development workflows, including model evaluation, quality metrics, and data pipelines.
• Strong analytical thinking, analysis, and problem‑solving skills
• Proficiency in Agile, SDLC development processes
• Ability to communicate abstract ideas clearly and independently manage complex project objectives

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 $144,600 and $263,800, 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. Learn about accessibility in Apple’s workplace. Learn about reasonable accommodations for job applicants.

Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.