
Machine Learning Research Engineer, NLP, Input Experience
Required skills
- Machine Intelligence
- on-device machine learning
- foundation models
- agentic harnesses
- ML product development
- feature definition
- data synthesis
- model training
- auto-evaluation
- model probing
Nice to have
- deploying large ML models
- real world products
- curating
- filtering
- scale
- ML pipelines
Role summary
Apple's Input Experience NLP team is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the evolution of agentic ML product development systems, focusing on Generative AI and NLP for features like Writing Tools, Summarization, and keyboard functionalities across all Apple platforms. This role involves innovating and scaling ML pipelines, data synthesis, model training, and evaluation processes using agentic workflows and Apple Foundation Models. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in ML, NLP, and software engineering, with prior technical leadership or management experience. Responsibilities include defining state-of-the-art ML paradigms, creating ML playbooks for global scale, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to bridge cutting-edge research with user-facing features.
Description
As an engineer, you will enable the next-generation of agentic ML product development systems at scale using Apple Foundation Models. You will sit at the intersection of cutting-edge research and product reality, bridging the gap between raw model performance and the nuanced needs of Apple customers worldwide. You will explore, design, and implement emerging techniques, ensuring alignment with product goals, privacy requirements, and performance metrics in a hands-on role. The role requires technical depth across ML & NLP, with a solid understanding of building scalable ML pipelines. You will redefine the ML development process across features and languages: problem formulation, experimentation, evaluation, fine-tuning, and continuous improvement that expand both the depth of Apple Intelligence’s capabilities and the breadth of its support for our global customer base.
Minimum Qualifications
Masters or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Statistics or related field; or equivalent practical experience Prior experience with technical leadership or engineering management Strong foundation in Data Science and ML Stack. Familiarity with product ML/NLP lifecycle Familiarity with techniques such as SFT, RLHF, Data Synthesis, Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning, LLM-judge evaluation Excellent communication skills
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with deploying large ML models for real world products and leading high-performing teams Experience curating, filtering, and synthesizing high-quality training datasets at scale Familiarity with ML pipelines that need to scale across languages Experience developing and training models for agentic workflows, tool calling and advanced reasoning techniques Familiarity with working and managing complex, large-scale codebases, with a strong emphasis on writing high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code. Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude, Copilot, or similar) to accelerate experimentation, code development, and research workflows
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
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