Machine Learning Architect - Conversational Speech

Apple Inc.; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 263,000 - 394,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical and dental cover

Retirement benefits

Discounted products and free services

Tuition reimbursement

Relocation support

Job summary

Apple Inc. in Cupertino is seeking a Machine Learning Architect for Conversational Speech to shape the future of Apple’s AI-powered assistant.

You will define modeling directions for speech recognition, synthesis, dialog, and multimodal foundation models, while hands-on solving hard technical challenges with cross-functional teams. The role emphasizes on-device constraints, latency, and scalable architectures to deliver high-quality conversational experiences across Apple devices.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of ML experience in speech or multimodal systems with leadership.
• Demonstrated expertise as a technical leader who defined modeling direction across teams.
• Deep hands-on proficiency in modern deep learning, including LLMs and end-to-end speech systems.
• Significant experience with multimodal LLMs, architecture design, training, adaptation, and deployment.
• Direct experience building speech-to-speech conversational systems with on-device constraints.
• Track record translating research into production-scale systems.
• Expert programming in Python and DL frameworks (PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow).

Responsibilities

• Define modeling strategy and technical direction across the Speech organization, establishing a unified vision for speech technologies.
• Serve as the organization’s foremost modeling expert, guiding multiple teams on interconnected speech capabilities.
• Evaluate research and industry trends and translate them into actionable roadmaps.
• Champion production-readiness accounting for on-device constraints, latency, scalability, and robustness.
• Collaborate with Siri, Apple Intelligence, hardware, and platform teams to align AI investments.

Skills

Machine Learning

Speech

Multimodal

Leadership

Architect/Lead

On-device ML

Python

Deep Learning

End-to-end Speech Systems

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or related field

Tools

Python

PyTorch

JAX

TensorFlow

Job description

Machine Learning Architect - Conversational Speech

Cupertino, California, United States Machine Learning and AI

Join the team redefining what a deeply personal and integrated assistant can be.As part of the Siri organization, you will help shape one of the world's most widely used AI assistants, powered by our next-generation of Apple Intelligence, with capabilities like personal context understanding and on-screen awareness, built with privacy from the ground up. Your work will have direct, meaningful impact for users across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS.This is a rare opportunity to build at the intersection of cutting-edge AI and human-centered design, shipping technology that is centered around users and their needs.

Description

The Speech organization within Siri drives major speech recognition, synthesis, and speech-to-speech model advances for features deeply embedded throughout Apple's ecosystem. Our mission is to build cutting-edge infrastructure, datasets, and models that empower Siri conversational AI, dictation, and speech-enabled Apple Intelligence features across natural language understanding, dialog generation, speech recognition, and multimodal interaction. We apply these technologies to create engaging, intelligent, and personalized conversational experiences for millions of Apple users.We are seeking a Machine Learning Architect to serve as a senior technical leader spanning the full Speech organization. You will set the future modeling direction for all of conversational speech—charting the architectural and algorithmic course for how Apple's speech technologies evolve. You will operate as a hands-on expert who not only defines strategy but also digs into the hardest technical problems, working shoulder-to-shoulder with teams to overcome critical obstacles. Reporting directly to the Speech organization leadership, you will have broad visibility and influence across speech recognition, synthesis, dialog, multimodal foundation models, and speech-to-speech systems, ensuring coherent technical vision and cross-team alignment.

Responsibilities

• As the Machine Learning Architect for Conversational Speech, you will define modeling strategy and technical direction across the Speech organization, establishing a unified architectural vision for speech recognition, speech synthesis, dialog systems, multimodal foundation models, and speech-to-speech technologies.
• You will serve as the organization's foremost modeling expert, providing deep technical guidance to multiple teams working on interconnected speech capabilities.
• You will evaluate emerging research and industry trends—including advances in large language models, multimodal architectures, and full-duplex natural conversational systems—and translate them into actionable roadmaps.
• You will champion production-readiness, ensuring architectural decisions account for on-device constraints, latency, scalability, and robustness.
• You will collaborate broadly with partner teams across Siri, Apple Intelligence, hardware, and platform engineering to ensure speech modeling investments are well-integrated into Apple's broader AI strategy.

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in machine learning applied to speech or multimodal systems, with progressively increasing technical scope and leadership.
• Demonstrated expertise as a technical leader or architect who has defined modeling direction across multiple teams or product areas.
• Deep, hands‑on proficiency in modern deep learning, including large language models and end‑to‑end speech systems.
• Significant experience with multimodal LLMs, including architecture design, training, adaptation, and deployment of models that integrate speech, audio, and text modalities.
• Direct experience building speech-to-speech conversational systems, with a strong understanding of full‑duplex natural conversational interaction and end‑to‑end speech pipelines.
• A track record of translating research into production‑quality systems at scale.
• Expert programming skills in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or similar technical field.
• Experience architecting or leading development of full‑duplex natural conversational systems, speech-to-speech models, or multimodal foundation models that have shipped to large‑scale user populations.
• Deep familiarity with the full stack of speech technologies—ASR, TTS, spoken dialog, speaker modeling, audio understanding—and an ability to reason about their interactions and dependencies.
• Experience with large‑scale distributed training and the infrastructure considerations that shape model design at scale.
• A data‑centric perspective on foundation model development, including experience guiding data collection, curation, annotation, and quality strategies.
• Experience with on‑device ML deployment, including model compression, quantization, and latency‑aware architecture design.

The base pay range for this role is between $262,500 and $394,000, 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
• 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.