Staff ML Engineer - Ads ML Infrastructure

Apple Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 184,700 - 324,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

Education reimbursement

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Apple Inc. is looking for a Machine Learning Engineer in New York City to design and develop secure and scalable back-end systems within its Ad Platforms group. You will help build machine learning products that deliver optimized content while maintaining user privacy. The ideal candidate has a strong track record in ML platforms and enjoys collaborative development environments.

This role offers a competitive salary range of $184,700 to $324,800 based on skills and experience, alongside benefits including stock options, health coverage, and educational reimbursements.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in machine learning and strong software engineering skills.
• Hands-on experience with methods for real-time inference and batch processing.
• Prior experience in advertising industry with a focus on ML techniques.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop secure and scalable back-end systems.
• Build high-performing systems with team collaboration.
• Define architectures for ad network challenges.

Skills

Designing large-scale ML platforms

Model quantization and optimizations

Distributed systems experience

Optimizing GPU kernels

Technical leadership and mentorship

Developing AI/ML tooling

Performance tuning and troubleshooting

Effective communication

Results-oriented mindset

Education

PhD/MS/BS in Computer Science or related field

Job description

New York City, New York, United States Machine Learning and AI

At Apple, we work every day to create products that enrich people’s lives. Our Ad Platforms group makes it possible for people around the world to easily access informative and imaginative content on their devices while helping publishers and developers promote and monetize their work. Today, our technology and services power advertising in Search Ads, App Store, and Apple News. Our platforms are highly‑performant, deployed at scale, and setting new standards for enabling effective advertising while protecting user privacy. The Machine Learning Platform team’s mission is to empower Ad Platforms teams to build and scale the innovative ML systems that deliver highly optimized advertising content to consumers.

Description

The ML Platform team is responsible for bringing numerous features to advertisers and consumers while simultaneously supporting scalable modeling and continuous experimentation by all Ad Platforms teams. As a key contributor to this team, you will design and develop secure and scalable back‑end systems. You will enjoy building high‑performing, elegant systems from the ground up, in close partnerships with various teams. You will also possess keen judgment in selecting technologies and building the right solution for the interesting challenges we get to tackle here. You will have the opportunity to define and refine architectures to meet the unique ad network challenges we must solve. You will play a meaningful role building machine learning products which deliver on Apple’s privacy commitments and change the way advertising works with data. Join us and contribute to a culture that emphasizes reliability, simplicity, and scalability. You will join a team of world‑class machine learning engineers hungry to apply leading‑edge technologies to deliver extraordinary experiences to our customers. We are one team, nurturing each other’s growth and supporting each other in delivering for our customers!

Minimum Qualifications

• Proven track record of designing and operating large‑scale, low‑latency ML Serving platform supporting real‑time and batch inference.
• Experience of model quantization, tensor parallelism, and inference optimizations (e.g ONNX Runtime, TensorRT, vLLM). Actively led evaluation and adoption of such technologies.
• Experience working on distributed systems (e.g Ray, high‑throughput RPC systems) to support scalable inference workloads and hybrid online/offline serving patterns.
• Hands‑on experience designing and optimizing low‑level GPU kernels to maximize hardware utilization, bypass memory bandwidth bottlenecks, and accelerate deep learning primitives.
• Prior experience in advertising industry, federated learning and privacy‑preserving ML techniques.
• Recognized as a technical leader and mentor, supports the growth of engineers through code/design reviews, working groups, and internal knowledge sharing.
• Led development of foundational AI/ML platforms and tooling including Feature Stores, Vector DB to accelerate team productivity and model lifecycle management.
• Experience performance tuning & trouble‑shooting.
• Passionate about developer experience builds abstractions, automation tools, and reusable components to streamline ML workflows and reduce operational burden.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both written and verbal, with technical and non‑technical multi‑functional teams.
• Results oriented with a desire to work in a fast‑paced and collaborative work environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• PhD, MS, or BS in computer science or a related field, with 8+ years of experience in machine learning and strong software engineering skills.

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.

Learn about accessibility in Apple’s workplace.

Learn about reasonable accommodations for job applicants.

Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.