Machine Learning Engineer, Apple Services Engineering

Apple Inc.; Seattle, Northern (WA, KY); Hybrid; USD 142,000 - 263,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and dental coverage

Retirement benefits

Discounted products & free services

Educational expense reimbursement

Relocation bonuses/assistance

Job summary

Apple Inc. is seeking an exceptional Machine Learning Engineer to design, build, and ship recommendation models powering personalization across the App Store. You’ll partner with researchers to deploy cutting-edge AI models at Apple's global scale.

You will design end-to-end ranker modules, implement features, run offline and online evaluations, and monitor production systems. This role demands collaboration across teams and a strong track record in production ML.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of relevant work experience.
• Hands-on experience with production-level recommender systems.
• Deep knowledge of recommendation systems and deep-learning architectures.
• Proven track record of shipping recommendation models to production at scale.
• Knowledge of modern recommendation architectures across retrieval and ranking.
• Proficiency with open-source Python ML/AI tools (TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn).
• Familiarity with distributed computing technologies (Spark, Hadoop, Kafka).
• Familiarity with using LLM-powered tools to accelerate engineering and research workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design, train, and launch recommendation models that improve relevance and metrics on App Store surfaces.
• Own ranker modules end-to-end: representation, features, architecture, evaluation, A/B testing, production monitoring.
• Drive adoption of ranking techniques from research to production.
• Collaborate with ML researchers, data engineers, and infra teams to productionize modeling approaches.
• Ship production-quality code and improve system architecture and code quality.
• Help chart the future growth of personalization across Apple's services.

Skills

Production-level recommender systems

Recommendation architectures

Deep-learning architectures

Multi-task modeling

Python ML stack (TensorFlow, PyTorch,

Spark / Hadoop / Kafka

LLM-powered tools usage

Education

Bachelor's and Master's in a quantitative field

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

scikit-learn

numpy-scipy-pandas

Job description

Seattle, Washington, United States Machine Learning and AI

Wonder how Apple's Media Products show relevant search results and recommendations across Apple's media offerings - including App Store, Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Books? Come join us! Design, build, and deploy recommendation models that personalize the App Store for billions of users worldwide! See your work touch the lives of billions of Apple users worldwide.The Apple Services Engineering team is one of the most exciting examples of Apple's long-held passion for combining art and technology. We are the people who power the App Store, Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Games and Apple Fitness+. And we do it on a massive scale, meeting Apple's high expectations with high performance, to deliver a huge variety of entertainment in over 35 languages to more than 150 countries.Our researchers and engineers build secure, end-to-end solutions powered by machine learning. Thanks to Apple's unique integration of hardware, software, and services, designers, scientists and engineers here partner to get behind a single unified vision. That vision always includes a deep commitment to strengthening Apple's privacy policy, one of Apple's core values. Although services are a bigger part of Apple's business than ever before, these teams remain small, flexible, and multi-functional, offering greater exposure to the array of opportunities here.

Description

We are looking for an exceptional Machine Learning Engineer to help us design, build, and ship recommendation models that power personalization across the App Store. With your expertise, we want to develop novel solutions to power personalized experiences across the App Store that enrich the lives of our customers. You will have the incredible opportunity to partner with researchers to see cutting-edge AI models deployed reliably at Apple's truly incredible global scale.

Responsibilities

• Design, train, and launch recommendation models that improve relevance and business metrics on key App Store surfaces.
• Own ranker modules end-to-end: candidate representation, feature engineering, model architecture, offline evaluation, A/B experimentation, and production monitoring.
• Drive adoption of state-of-the-art ranking techniques from research prototypes into production.
• Partner closely with ML researchers, data engineers, and infrastructure teams to productionize new modeling approaches with high reliability and low latency.
• Ship production-quality code and drive engineering best practices, system architecture, and code quality within the team.
• Help chart the future growth of personalization across Apple's services ecosystem.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's and Master's in a quantitative field, including Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, etc.
• 3+ years of relevant work experience.
• Hands-on experience with production-level recommender systems.
• Deep knowledge of recommendation systems, design patterns and tools, with particular depth in deep-learning architectures and multi-task modeling.
• Proven track record of shipping recommendation models to production at scale, with a strong understanding of the constraints of serving billions of users.
• Knowledge of modern recommendation architectures across retrieval and ranking, multi-task learning, sequence and transformer-based models, generative recommenders, and multi-objective optimization.
• Proven grasp of the open-source Python ML/AI tech stack, including TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, numpy-scipy-pandas.
• Familiarity with big data technologies and distributed computing (e.g., Spark, Hadoop, Kafka).
• Familiarity with using LLM-powered tools (coding and research assistants) to accelerate day-to-day engineering and research workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

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 $142,300 and $263,300, 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

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.