Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Ads Relevance & Quality

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

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Relocation assistance

Education reimbursement

Comprehensive medical and dental

Job summary

Apple Inc. in Cupertino, California, is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer for Ads Relevance & Quality. You will design models to improve ad relevance, detect unsafe content, and raise user trust across billions of impressions.

You’ll apply NLP and multimodal techniques, work with Transformer architectures, and partner with product and policy teams to translate standards into measurable ML goals while ensuring privacy and quality at scale.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of ML at scale in ad tech / content moderation / ranking / recommendations.
• Strong NLP expertise including offensive content detection and semantic matching.
• Experience with Transformer architectures and training pipelines (TensorFlow or PyTorch).
• Familiarity with fine-tuning LLMs for classification or moderation tasks.
• Experience with A/B testing, production debugging, and privacy-preserving datasets.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL; strong communication and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement ML models to evaluate and improve ad relevance, trust, and quality.
• Build NLP and multi-modal models to detect offensive or policy-violating content at scale.
• Develop methods for semantic query understanding and ad matching.
• Collaborate with product and policy teams to translate standards into ML objectives.
• Work with large privacy-preserving datasets to discover new quality signals.
• Conduct offline/online experiments to measure impact on user trust and satisfaction.
• Partner with infra, product, and moderation teams to deploy models at production scale.

Skills

NLP

Transformer models

Python

SQL

A/B testing

Content moderation

Semantics matching

Problem solving

Communication

Education

MS in Computer Science / ML / NLP

PhD in CS / ML / NLP

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Scala

Java

Job description

Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Ads Relevance & Quality

Cupertino, California, United States Software and Services

At Apple, we focus deeply on our customers’ experience. Apple Ads brings this same approach to advertising, helping people find exactly what they’re looking for and helping advertisers grow their businesses! Our technology powers ads and sponsorships across Apple Services, including the App Store, Apple News, and MLS Season Pass.Everything we do is designed for trust, connection, and impact: We respect user privacy, integrate advertising thoughtfully into the experience, and deliver value for advertisers of all sizes—from small app developers to big, global brands. Because when advertising is done right, it benefits everyone!Apple’s Ads team is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Machine Learning Engineer to join the Ads Relevance and Quality team. This team is responsible for ensuring high-quality, trustworthy ad experiences by building intelligent systems to evaluate ad relevance, detect low-quality or offensive content, and optimize user satisfaction.You’ll work at the intersection of applied ML, NLP, and content quality—designing models and systems that understand queries, flag inappropriate content, and raise the bar for ad relevance and user trust across billions of queries and impressions.

Description

You’ll play a key role in shaping the future of safe, high-quality advertising at Apple. Your work will help ensure that ads remain useful, relevant, and respectful of our users—supporting Apple’s values of privacy, trust, and transparency. You’ll collaborate with world-class engineers and researchers, apply cutting-edge ML techniques in real-world systems, and have a direct impact on the experience of millions of users every day.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement machine learning models to evaluate and improve ad relevance, trust, and quality for user queries
• Build NLP and multi-modal models that detect offensive, unsafe, or policy-violating content at scale
• Develop methods for semantic query understanding, ads understanding, relevance scoring, and keyword-to-ad matching
• Collaborate closely with product and policy teams to translate content integrity standards into measurable ML objectives
• Work with large-scale, privacy-preserving datasets to discover and operationalize new quality signals
• Conduct offline/online experiments to measure impact on user trust and satisfaction across Ads
• Partner cross-functionally with infrastructure, product, and moderation teams to deploy models at production scale

Minimum Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience applying machine learning at scale in domains such as ad tech, content moderation, search ranking, or recommendation systems
• Strong expertise in natural language processing, including offensive content detection, semantic matching
• Experience with Transformer-based architectures (e.g., BERT, DistilBERT) and training pipelines in TensorFlow or PyTorch
• Familiarity with fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) for downstream tasks such as classification, content moderation, or semantic relevance
• Familiarity with quality and fairness evaluation frameworks (precision, recall, coverage, policy alignment, etc.)
• Hands-on experience with A/B testing, experimentation frameworks, and performance debugging in production
• Proficiency in Python and SQL
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills with a focus on translating abstract trust/safety goals into deployable solutions
• MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or a related technical field

Preferred Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience applying machine learning at scale in domains such as ad tech, content moderation, search ranking, or recommendation systems
• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or a related technical field
• Additional experience in Scala or Java

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.