Software Engineer, Apple Gift Systems

Apple; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple in San Diego is seeking a senior backend engineer for the Gift Card payments platform. You will design and build distributed systems that process high-volume transactions securely and reliably across Apple’s ecosystem.

The role covers architecture, deployment, observability, and on-call operations, with collaboration across engineering, design, and product teams to deliver scalable software.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of professional backend software engineering experience.
• Experience architecting, building, and operating mission-critical distributed systems at large scale.
• Ability to reason about distributed systems trade-offs and defend choices.
• Commitment to engineering excellence and learning new technologies.
• Strong written and verbal communication for global teams and partners.
• Track record of influencing technical direction and relationships.
• Experience using generative AI tools in the development lifecycle.
• Ability to collaborate with cross-functional partners to define product objectives.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services powering Apple Gift Card experiences.
• Architect secure, high-performance APIs and services handling millions of transactions globally.
• Own systems end to end from design through deployment, monitoring, and on-call.
• Deploy and operate services on Apple’s internal cloud with CI/CD pipelines and IaC.
• Collaborate with teams across Apple to integrate with core financial and commerce systems.
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting for production reliability.
• Participate in code reviews and design discussions to raise the technical bar.
• Lead complex projects from conception to production and drive technical consensus.
• Continuously improve performance, developer experience, and operational excellence.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

APIs design

Code reviews

Communication

AI tooling awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or SE

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Spring

Java/Kotlin

REST

gRPC

CI/CD

OpenTelemetry

Datadog

Prometheus

SQL/NoSQL

Job description

Summary

At Apple, great ideas quickly become extraordinary products, services, and experiences that touch millions of lives. The Apple Gift Card team is redefining how people connect, share, and celebrate — transforming gifting into a seamless, secure experience that spans the entire Apple ecosystem. We’re looking for a skilled and curious software engineer to help build the future of gifting, where every purchase, redemption, and moment of joy is powered by innovation and thoughtful design. The ideal candidate thrives on ambiguity, cares deeply about engineering excellence, and wants their work to reach millions of people.

Description

As a member of the Payments Engineering organization, you’ll design and build distributed systems that support secure, high-volume payment and gifting experiences worldwide. Our platforms process transactions at global scale, ensuring reliability, privacy, and delight in every interaction.

You’ll be part of a team that owns the full product lifecycle — from architecture and implementation through deployment, observability, and on-call operations. You’ll also have the opportunity to shape early development investigations, prototypes, and third-party integrations, and you’ll collaborate across Apple’s engineering, design, and product teams to deliver software that integrates seamlessly into Apple’s ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services powering Apple Gift Card experiences
• Architect secure, high-performance APIs and services that handle millions of transactions globally
• Own systems end to end — from design and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and on-call
• Deploy and operate services on Apple’s internal cloud platform, using automated delivery pipelines and infrastructure as code
• Collaborate cross-functionally with teams across Apple to integrate with core financial and commerce systems, and with external partners
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting to ensure reliability and visibility in production
• Participate in code reviews and design discussions, and help raise the technical bar across the team
• Lead complex projects from conception to production, driving consensus on technical direction along the way
• Continuously improve system performance, developer experience, and operational excellence

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of professional backend software engineering experience
• Experience architecting, building, and operating mission-critical distributed systems at large scale
• The ability to reason about distributed systems trade-offs across consistency, latency, and throughput, and to defend the choices you make
• A commitment to engineering excellence, continuous improvement, and the curiosity to evaluate and advocate for new technologies and patterns
• An ability to communicate thoughtfully and clearly, both verbally and in writing, to drive consensus on complex technical concepts with diverse audiences, including global teams and external partners
• A track record of building and sustaining healthy long-term relationships and technical influence within your team and beyond its boundaries
• The tenacity and perseverance to lead complex projects all the way from conception to production
• Experience using generative AI tools throughout the software development lifecycle to produce high-quality software
• Able to work with cross-functional partners to define product objectives

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency with Java or Kotlin and Spring, with the judgment to evaluate, review, and debug code regardless of how it was produced
• Proven development and operational experience with high-volume REST and/or gRPC services (either server-to-server or mobile client facing)
• Experience designing for containerization and orchestration (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience architecting and operating cloud-native applications with resilience, failover, and self-healing as core features
• Experience delivering and operating services on a managed internal platform, rather than provisioning raw cloud infrastructure
• The ability to design robust CI/CD pipelines and define infrastructure as code
• Experience with observability strategies and tools (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Splunk, Datadog)
• A working understanding of security, privacy, and cryptography (e.g. encryption, tokenization, key management, PKI, certificate management, JWT)
• Experience optimizing SQL/NoSQL databases for scale (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, CockroachDB, Oracle)
• Domain knowledge of payments, commerce, gift cards, or other financial systems with strict correctness and audit requirements
• Passion for people, code, and improving our future