Senior Software Engineer - Distributed Build Systems

Apple Inc.; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 309,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical and dental

Retirement benefits

Discounted products and services

Employee stock programs

Education expense reimbursement

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Apple Inc. in Cupertino is seeking a senior software engineer to shape the distributed build platform that powers our OS and apps.

You will own technically complex, high-impact projects to optimize scheduling, ensure build correctness, and improve performance at scale. You’ll mentor engineers, establish best practices, and help across teams while communicating trade-offs to stakeholders in cross-functional planning.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in developer tooling, backend, infrastructure, or systems contexts.
• Experience owning delivery of projects with significant scope and driving completion.
• Experience mentoring engineers or raising team capabilities through code review or guidance.

Responsibilities

• Own technically complex, high-impact projects to optimize distributed scheduling, caching, and build performance at scale.
• Set technical direction, make design trade-offs, and measure impact with telemetry.
• Mentor engineers, establish best practices, and facilitate design discussions across teams.
• Communicate trade-offs across organizational boundaries and align efforts with stakeholders.

Skills

5+ years experience

Mentoring engineers

Delivery ownership

Data-driven decision making

Tools

Swift Build

Bazel

Buck

Observability tooling

Job description

Apple's distributed build platform is central to the development and delivery of every operating system and app we ship. Tens of thousands of engineers rely on it daily to develop software that ships to billions of customers - a scale that has few peers in the industry.

Description

We're looking for senior software engineers who combine deep technical ability with strong engineering judgment and the ability to lead through influence. In this role, you'll shape the platform by identifying and solving the most important problems, while raising the engineering bar for the team.

You'll own technically complex and high-impact projects to optimize distributed scheduling, ensure build correctness, develop caching strategies, and continuously improve build performance at scale. You'll set technical direction, make design trade-offs, and ensure high-quality outcomes. Post-delivery, you'll use data and telemetry to measure impact, drive reliability improvements, and support production systems on call.

Beyond individual contributions, you'll play a key role in elevating the team by mentoring engineers, establishing engineering best practices, improving development processes, and contributing to a culture of technical rigor and continuous improvement. You'll help less-experienced engineers grow by providing thoughtful code review, facilitating design discussions, and creating opportunities for others to take on challenging work.

You'll also need to communicate effectively across organizational boundaries, articulating technical trade-offs to stakeholders, aligning efforts across teams, and representing the team's technical perspective in cross-functional planning.

Preferred Qualifications

• Distributed systems, scheduling, or caching at scale
• Concurrency, systems programming, or performance optimization
• Build systems (Swift Build, Bazel, Buck, etc.)
• Observability, monitoring, or SRE practices
• Leveraging AI-assisted development tools to improve personal and team productivity
• Making risk-informed decisions about changes to systems with broad user impact
• Driving architectural decisions that balance near-term delivery with long-term system health
• Communicating technical trade-offs to diverse audiences, including those outside your immediate domain

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in developer tooling, backend, infrastructure, or systems contexts
• Experience developing testing strategies and operating software in production environments using metrics, telemetry, and performance data to evaluate system behavior, identify bottlenecks, and drive iteration on systems
• Experience owning the delivery of projects with significant scope, including defining approach and driving completion
• Experience mentoring engineers or raising team capabilities through code review, design guidance, or knowledge sharing

Pay & Benefits

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 $175,000 and $308,500, 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.

• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
• retirement benefits
• a range of discounted products and free services
• 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.