Senior Hardware Systems Engineer– Data Center HWE

Apple's Data Center Hardware Engineering team builds the custom compute platforms behind Apple's services. We design circuits and boards, own rack integration, and deliver complete hardware systems that extend what user devices can do, host the content people love, and enable the capabilities Apple is bringing to customers now and in the future. Delivering those experiences requires systems that grow more complex with every program. They span multiple physical racks, high-speed networking, tiered data storage, energy storage, and custom compute from different teams and vendors. Every piece must work together as one. System engineering work happens across the organization today, but no single person owns it end to end. As platform scope grows and programs multiply, that gap matters more. The Senior Hardware Systems Engineer closes that gap. This role owns the system: the requirements that define it, the interfaces between its parts, and the documentation that holds it together from the first architecture conversation to handoff to sustaining operations. If that kind of ownership is what you're built for, we want to talk.

Description

You will own the system as a whole: the requirements that define it, the interfaces that connect it, the documentation that captures it, and the evidence that proves every part of it works. You'll work with our architecture team to turn high-level platform goals into a complete, verifiable set of hardware requirements. Then you'll deliver those requirements to the teams responsible for each piece: custom PCBs, rack enclosures, power delivery and energy storage, networking, data storage, mechanical systems, firmware, and software. You won't build each of those pieces, but you'll know each domain well enough to write requirements they can actually build to, catch problems at boundaries before they become integration surprises, and get every team aligned on what the system needs. Our platforms integrate custom, semi-custom, and off-the-shelf hardware across multiple programs running in parallel. Requirements take shape during the architecture and high-level design process, and one of the most important things this role does is pull that work as early as possible. A requirement discovered during detailed design is expensive, and one discovered during validation testing is far more disruptive. Your job is to lead the requirements process at the system level from the very start: make decisions, document them with enough rigor that a sustaining team can depend on them years from now, and keep the whole picture in focus while everyone else is heads-down in their domain. The right person for this role has done it before, though not necessarily in a datacenter. We'd rather hire someone who has already lived through a fundamental shift in what a system needs to be. Fields like defense, aerospace, automotive, and industrial systems have been solving exactly this class of problem for decades. What we need is someone who can write a requirement that can be tested, own a room full of specialists and drive them to agreement, and see three moves ahead when a change in one sub-system creates a problem somewhere else. This is a role for someone who measures success in decisions that stick and hardware that ships.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, or a related field 12+ years of systems engineering experience on complex, multi-domain hardware programs that have shipped A track record of owning system-level technical documentation, including requirements specs, interface definitions, verification and validation records, traceability matrices, and trade study documentation, through formal review and approval across a full program from concept to sustaining handoff Strong written and verbal communication skills, with experience driving technical alignment across hardware, software, and mechanical teams at all levels

Preferred Qualifications

Experience writing and managing interface control documentation and system specifications across multi-vendor hardware integrations Experience breaking system requirements into sub-system allocations and building V&V strategies that close at the system level Systems engineering experience on programs in defense, aerospace, automotive, semiconductor capital equipment, or similar fields where existing standards didn't apply and specs had to be written from scratch Working knowledge of a recognized systems engineering framework or handbook (for example INCOSE, ISO/IEC 15288, or an equivalent internal program standard) Deep familiarity with high-power, complex power delivery systems: power architecture, power budgeting, and system-level power integrity Familiarity with system-level signal integrity for high-speed digital interconnects Experience with system reliability engineering, including FMEA/FMECA, reliability allocation, and failure mode analysis across complex integrated systems Working knowledge of AI/ML accelerator interconnects, including PCIe Gen5/6, CXL, NVLink, or comparable high-bandwidth fabrics Experience defining data storage requirements across latency tiers, from fast local storage through disaggregated or tiered architectures Familiarity with rack and row-level thermal management, including direct liquid cooling and immersion cooling tradeoffs Experience managing suppliers as a technical owner, holding them to requirements and managing interface compliance Experience assessing the systems engineering coverage of an active program, identifying gaps in process or documentation, and driving practical improvements that work within the constraints of a real team on a real schedule Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Systems Engineering