Staff/Sr. ML Infrastructure Engineer, Foundation Model Compute Infra

Cupertino, California, United States Machine Learning and AI

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Description

As a Senior/Staff Engineer on the Foundation Model Compute Infrastructure team, you will design and build large-scale infrastructure that powers foundation model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and inference. You will develop model inference and fine-tuning services, onboard and benchmark new accelerators, and work closely with foundation model researchers and engineers to improve reliability, performance, scalability, and developer productivity across Apple’s AI workloads.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and evolve large-scale model serving and fine-tuning services for foundation model workloads
• Develop reliable infrastructure for model deployment, serving autoscaling, traffic management, job execution, container orchestration, and serving performance analysis
• Improve the performance and usability of model serving and fine-tuning workloads by optimizing latency, throughput, availability, accelerator utilization, checkpoint loading, compilation caching, KV-cache-aware routing, and workflows for launching, monitoring, debugging, evaluating, and deploying models
• Onboard and Benchmark new accelerator technologies into Apple’s compute infrastructure
• Collaborate with the Apple Foundation Model team to integrate technologies such as Pathways, Ray, and Beam, or expose them as reliable and scalable services
• Mentor engineers and partner across teams to influence the technical direction of Apple’s foundation model compute infrastructure

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of industry experience building large-scale distributed systems or cloud infrastructure
• Experience with distributed ML training or inference systems
• Strong programming skills in Python, Go, C++, or similar systems languages
• Experience with accelerator infrastructure such as TPU, GPU
• Experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, or large-scale cluster management systems
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across engineering and research teams
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building schedulers, resource managers, or orchestration systems for distributed workloads
• Familiarity with frameworks such as JAX, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Ray, Pathways, or vLLM
• Experience operating large-scale multi-tenant infrastructure in cloud or hybrid environments
• Background in performance optimization, fault tolerance, or resource efficiency for large distributed systems
• Strong expertise in distributed systems, scalability, reliability, and performance engineering
• Experience designing backend services or infrastructure platforms operating at production scale
• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

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

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