Sr. Software Frameworks Engineer, Sensing & Connectivity

Apple; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple is seeking exceptional systems engineers to design, implement, and debug production systems in C, Objective-C, and Swift that power privacy controls across iOS, macOS, watchOS, and more. You will architect permission frameworks and strengthen privacy architecture against evolving threats in an AI-driven world.

Ideal candidates will have 5+ years of experience in system-level development, familiarity with AI-assisted workflows, and a proven ability to reason about privacy and data access in

Qualifications

• Proficiency in C, Objective-C, C++, or Swift.
• Experience designing system-level APIs and background daemons.
• Familiarity with AI-powered tools and incorporating them into workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and debug production systems in C, Objective-C, and Swift powering privacy controls across Apple platforms.
• Architect permission frameworks and strengthen privacy architecture against evolving threat vectors.
• Build foundational components that operate across operating systems and support AI-driven features.
• Tackle privacy challenges from generative AI technologies, including on-device models and data minimization.

Skills

C

Objective-C

C++

Swift

Unix-like

Background daemons

Job description

Summary

Apple's privacy engineering team is responsible for designing and enforcing the controls that keep user data protected across every Apple platform. As generative AI and intelligent features reshape how people interact with technology, the expectations for privacy engineering are evolving rapidly. We are looking for exceptional systems engineers who want to define how privacy works in an AI-driven world -- ensuring that powerful new capabilities never come at the cost of user trust.

Description

You will design, implement, and debug production systems in C, Objective-C, and Swift that power privacy controls across Apple platforms (iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, Apple TV, and HomePod). Your work will span architecting permission frameworks, strengthening privacy architecture against evolving threat vectors, and building foundational components that operate across operating systems.

A critical part of this role is tackling the new privacy challenges introduced by generative AI technologies. You will work on problems like controlling how on-device models and intelligent features access sensitive user data; designing permission and consent frameworks for AI-driven workflows; enforcing data minimization and sandboxing for on-device AI models; and building privacy-preserving on-device inference into our systems from the ground up. These are emerging challenges at the forefront of the industry.

Minimum Qualifications

• Proficiency in C, Objective-C, C++, or Swift
• Experience designing system-level APIs and background daemons
• Strong Unix-like systems programming knowledge
• Experience building reliable daemons with robust lifecycle management
• Experience designing fault-tolerant error handling for long-running system daemons
• Clear technical communication skills
• Familiarity with AI-powered tools and the ability to incorporate them effectively into day-to-day workflows is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years professional software engineering experience
• System architecture design experience for privacy or security software
• Cross-functional technical leadership experience
• macOS or Unix systems programming background
• Full software development lifecycle experience
• Relational database and local storage design familiarity
• Practical experience using generative AI tools in an engineering workflow (e.g., AI-assisted code generation, LLM-powered debugging)
• Ability to reason about the privacy and data-access implications of machine learning systems at the systems level
• Experience with responsible AI development practices, including AI safety, privacy-preserving machine learning, or designing guardrails and safety mechanisms for intelligent features