
Sr Machine Learning Engineer - ML Data
Required skills
- mission-critical code
- production machine learning systems
- ML infrastructure
- feature stores
- embedding management
- ML lifecycle
- model evaluation
- train-serve skew
- data drift
- PyTorch
Nice to have
- advertising industry
- LLM-based data generation
- LLM-based evaluation
- large-scale distributed training
- privacy-preserving ML
- agentic AI
Role summary
Apple's Ads group is seeking a Sr. Machine Learning Engineer specializing in ML Data to empower Ads teams with innovative ML systems. You will design, develop, and build scalable back-end systems and platform capabilities, focusing on secure, high-performing solutions for ad network challenges. This role involves working with ML infrastructure, feature stores, embedding management, and production data pipelines, ensuring data quality and system reliability. You'll leverage your understanding of the ML lifecycle, deep learning frameworks like PyTorch/TensorFlow, and experience in domains like advertising or recommender systems. The position emphasizes a product-minded approach, ownership, and collaboration within a fast-paced, privacy-conscious environment.
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 Ads 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 solutions for the unique ad network challenges we face. 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
Experience writing mission-critical code for production machine learning systems Experience building ML infrastructure, frameworks or services used by multiple teams Experience building or operating feature stores, or comparable ML data infrastructure serving production models Experience with embedding management: generating and versioning embeddings, refresh and retirement policy, and storing and serving them for retrieval at scale Solid understanding of the ML lifecycle: training, evaluation, deployment and serving/inferencing, with working experience building and deploying models Understanding of model evaluation, train-serve skew and data drift Working knowledge of deep learning architectures and training frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow Prior experience applying ML at scale in advertising, recommender systems, information retrieval or related domains Experience with training data generation across multi-modal data (text, image and structured), including sampling and point-in-time correctness Experience building production data pipelines for ML systems where scale and performance are critical using distributed processing systems. Experience building ML systems using batch and streaming deployments, workflow orchestration and modern storage formats Strong data modeling and data architecture skills, with a high bar for system and data quality: correctness, reliability, testing and validation Strong problem solving, debugging and performance tuning skills, and pride in building automation, tooling and CI/CD Results oriented, with the ability to communicate effectively, both written and verbal, with technical and non-technical multi-functional teams Product-minded with a proven ability to seek projects with a sense of ownership
Preferred Qualifications
Preferred Qualifications Experience in advertising industry Experience with LLM-based data generation or evaluation Familiarity with large-scale distributed training and its demands on data infrastructure Prior experience in privacy-preserving ML Familiarity with agentic AI Education & Experience PhD in Computer Science or related field with 3+ years of engineering experience and 5+ years of machine learning experience; or MS in Computer Science or related field with 6+ years of engineering experience and 5+ years of machine learning experience; or BS in Computer Science or related field with 7+ years of engineering experience and 5+ years of machine learning experience
Sample Apple interview questions
- 1
Design a typeahead box for a search engine
system designmedium - 2
Design a rate limiter
system designmedium - 3
Architect a key-value store for distributed systems.
system designmedium - 4
Design a system to schedule jobs in a distributed environment
system designmedium - 5
What is an API and how does it work?
technicalmedium
Get started to unlock a personalized interview prep pack for this role.
Similar roles
Sr. Software Engineer (Java Middleware), eBusinessApple · Sunnyvale, CA · Onsite
Shipping SupervisorApple · Santa Clara, CA · Onsite- Senior Machine Learning Engineer I, AI & ML PlatformSpring Health · San Francisco · Hybrid
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Growth)Discord · San Francisco, CA · Onsite
- Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Engineer 1 - C++/Marian/Java/AWS/PyTorch/PythonCaptivation Software · Annapolis Junction, MD · Onsite
- Principal Machine Learning Engineer - MatchmakingRoblox · San Mateo, CA · Onsite
