Job Details

Role Number: 200641234-0836

Summary

Our team is dedicated to solving the high-quality training data problem at the scale required to train advanced Foundation Models. We believe that the advanced model performance (including reasoning, coding, and agentic planning) fundamentally depends on a data-centric approach to Machine Learning. Our objective is to engineer a large-scale system that acquires, processes, and curates the data required to advance the state of the art in Artificial Intelligence.
We are seeking a Senior Research Engineer who possesses a deep understanding of distributed systems and a strong intuition for Machine Learning. You will join a culture that values engineering craftsmanship, privacy, and rigorous scientific inquiry, utilizing advanced cloud technologies to build the data systems that powers our most capable models.

Description

This position operates at the convergence of Software Engineering and Machine Learning Research. Unlike traditional backend roles, this position requires you to design systems where the outcome is the statistical distribution and quality of data itself. You will work alongside Research Scientists to transform theoretical observations into concrete, scalable engineering solutions. Your core focus will be the architecture of our Data Acquisition, Processing, and Repository Management systems for Large Model training. You will lead technical efforts to enable active, quality-driven data curation, including filtering, deduping, synthetic data generation and data mixing, ensuring our models are trained on the highest-quality information available.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or Mathematics.

• Technical Expertise: 4+ years of software engineering experience with a specific focus on Data Infrastructure, Distributed Systems, or AI/ML Engineering.

• Language Proficiency: Expert fluency in Python, and strong competence in system languages such as C++.

• Cloud Architecture: Extensive experience architecting solutions on major public cloud platforms (e.g. GCP) to build scalable data systems (e.g. with Apache Beam, GCS)

• Performance Engineering: Deep experience profiling and optimizing high-throughput data systems. Demonstrated ability to debug distributed bottlenecks (e.g., stragglers, I/O saturation), optimize data formats and provide efficient data storage solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Research Collaboration: Experience working within or closely with ML research organizations (e.g., as a Research Engineer), with an ability to translate research results into engineering implementations.

• Domain Knowledge: Familiarity with lifecycle of modern LLM training, end-to-end workflows, and underlying system architecture.

• Complex Data Types: Experience in processing complex data modalities beyond plain text, such as source code repositories, images, videos, and audios.

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 (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12ScreenRdr.pdf) .