Software Engineer, iCloud Platform

Imagine what we could do together. At Apple, new ideas have a way of becoming phenomenal products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job, and there's no telling what we could accomplish. Apple is looking for a Software Engineer to contribute to developing the next‑generation iCloud Platform. You will help build and enhance key components of systems that enable new applications and experiences for millions of users. Whether working on privacy‑preserving cloud infrastructure or media processing and content delivery systems, you will collaborate with world‑class teams around the world who have a real passion for engineering and delivering features that maintain strong privacy guarantees to end users.

We are high‑impact teams that design, build, and operate novel functionality across Apple's iCloud Platform. Our work spans privacy‑preserving cloud compute infrastructure and media processing systems that enable many of Apple's signature apps and experiences. This work is crucial to the success of Apple's growth in services, enabling new features that will change the world. This role will take you beyond the systems and services you will find elsewhere. Privacy is paramount at Apple, and this role involves close collaboration with Privacy and Security teams. The ideal candidate will have a strong quality focus and be motivated by helping evolve services into reliable scalable systems. If you're passionate about building technology that protects users' privacy at cloud scale, bring a collaborative mindset, and want to work on problems that have never been solved before, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• You’ll work as part of teams developing groundbreaking architecture—leveraging relationships with colleagues in Apple Silicon, hardened Operating Systems, the memory‑safe Swift language, anonymized networking, and much more.
• Our systems are distributed in nature, and you will gain experience reasoning about different failure models that may occur.
• You will be comfortable working with cross‑functional partner teams to deliver the best outcomes.
• Product development can be fast‑paced, and requirements can change during rapid innovation cycles.
• You will have the opportunity to clarify requirements, taking risks where justified by the reward.
• You will be exposed to CI/CD, observability, and SLOs as part of building mature, reliable services.
• Learn to identify and prevent potential production issues proactively.
• When issues do occur, you will work with teammates to diagnose and resolve them quickly.
• This is not an operations role, but the job will provide second‑level support when expertise is required, potentially out of hours.
• This role offers excellent learning opportunities in distributed systems, scalability, and privacy‑focused engineering.
• At the Senior level, you'll independently solve complex problems within well‑scoped areas, applying established patterns and practices while building deep technical expertise in your domain.
• You’ll manage your parts of timelines and deliverables, and design solutions that advance the platform's capabilities.
• You will bring a can‑do attitude to get features shipped but be willing to defend good engineering practice—comprehensive testing, CI, and small regular changes—with the longer term in mind.
• Working from our London office, you will work a hybrid schedule—3 days in the office.
• Generally your days will split into two—with 2/3 of the day given to focus time for coding, pairing, and designing, and 1/3 for meetings to connect with colleagues in Cupertino.
• You will be comfortable operating in a dynamic environment and working cross‑functionally to achieve your goals.
• You will be a self‑starter—unflustered by new technology or requirements that are nascent.

Minimum Qualifications

• Foundation in Computer Science fundamentals - through experience or education.
• Programming proficiency in high‑level languages—Swift is preferable, but other languages common in server‑side ecosystems (Java, Go, Rust, C# etc.) are valued.
• Experience building and evolving reliable services at scale.
• Software engineering excellence—building reliable systems assured with comprehensive testing (unit, integration, system, performance).
• Strong problem‑solving and debugging skills.
• Experience with code review processes, collaborative development and familiarity with version control systems.
• Experience with Unix‑like operating systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to independently manage projects from design through delivery; strong technical depth in distributed systems or related areas.
• Communication - Skilled in cross‑functional communication and collaboration.
• Experience solving complex problems across multiple layers of the stack.
• Designing and evolving application layer protocols for distributed systems—especially protobuf and gRPC, though HTTP REST and API design experience is helpful.
• Understanding of security techniques and technologies—e.g. certificates, software signing, attestation.
• Deep understanding of security and privacy technologies in distributed systems.
• Knowledge of Kubernetes or other methods of automating and scaling cloud deployments, load balancing and traffic routing.
• Understanding of Linux or Apple OS fundamentals.
• Experience with cloud‑scale infrastructure, observability, and operational excellence.
• Experience in the Media Streaming domain (Video formats, Codecs, HLS) is a plus.

At Apple, we’re not all the same. And that’s our greatest strength. We draw on the differences in who we are, what we’ve experienced and how we think. Because to create products that serve everyone, we believe in including everyone. Therefore, we are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally. As a registered Disability Confident employer, we will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations. Apple will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal backgrounds in a manner consistent with applicable law.