Apple logo
Apple Verified
Consumer Electronics, Software, Services, Retail

Senior Software Engineer, Ads

Cupertino, CAOnsiteFull TimeSeniorPosted 1 month agoVisa sponsorship available

Is this role right for you?

Upload your resume and get a skill-by-skill breakdown — see exactly where you match, where you're close, and what to highlight. Not a mystery percentage.

Get a tailored resume highlighting what this role needs.

Required skills

  • OS fundamentals
  • platform engineering
  • cross-process communication
  • concurrency
  • on-device business logic
  • privacy-by-architecture
  • high-performance client SDKs
  • libraries
  • caching
  • versioning

Nice to have

  • Ad tech
  • Apple-platform fundamentals
  • Swift
  • Objective-C
  • public APIs
  • SDKs

Role summary

Apple is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for its Ads Platforms group. This role focuses on building on-device systems that deliver ads across the Apple ecosystem, including OS daemons, frameworks, and SDKs. The position requires deep expertise in OS fundamentals, systems programming in C-like languages, cross-process communication, and concurrent programming. You will be responsible for designing and operating high-performance client SDKs, owning architecture for complex codebases, and mentoring other senior engineers. Experience with AdTech, Apple platforms, and public API design is preferred. This is a systems and platform engineering role, not a UI-focused position.

At Apple, we believe in the power of technology to enrich people's lives, a belief that extends to the work we do in building innovative advertising solutions that benefit advertisers and endusers alike. In the Ad Platforms group we help developers drive app discovery across the App Store, help advertisers promote their products along trusted content from publishers in Apple News and Stocks, and help sponsors connect with audiences in live sports on Apple TV. Everything we do is with the unwavering commitment to privacy you expect from Apple. Because we believe when advertising is done right, it benefits everyone.

Description


We build the on-device systems that deliver ads across the Apple ecosystem: OS daemons, frameworks, and SDKs that fetch, rank and filter ad candidates; enforce ad policy and legal compliance; and protect user privacy before our partner apps even render anything. This is not a UI or app-building role: this is a systems and platform engineering position that requires working knowledge of cross-process communication, concurrency, on-device business logic, and privacy-by-architecture at scale.

Minimum Qualifications


Deep, expert-level understanding of OS fundamentals (process/memory management, scheduling, file systems), on any platform — Apple experience not required Extensive professional software development experience in a C-like language, including systems with significant scale and reliability requirements Expert-level understanding of cross-process communication and concurrent programming — multi-threading, synchronization, locking, and reasoning about races/deadlocks in production systems Track record of designing and operating high-performance client SDKs or libraries at scale — including caching, versioning, breaking changes, and feature-flagged rollouts, with demonstrated judgment on tradeoffs Demonstrated experience owning architecture and technical direction for complex, long-lived codebases, including legacy components, and driving multi-team initiatives to resolve structural issues in them Proven ability to operate with significant ambiguity, set technical direction without a playbook, and drive alignment across engineering, product, and business stakeholders History of mentoring and growing other senior engineers; excellent written and verbal communication, including with non-technical partners Bachelors Degree or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications


Ad tech; Apple-platform fundamentals incl. Swift/Obj-C; designing/maintaining public APIs or SDKs for external developers; CoreData/libdispatch/XPC/Swift concurrency/daemons; telemetry/observability; client-server networking; experience setting technical strategy for a multi-team org

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.

Ready to apply?
You'll be redirected to Apple's application page.

Similar roles

See how RiseMe works

Match, tailor, and prep so you send fewer applications and land more interviews.