
Sr Automation & Intelligence Tools Engineer, SEAR
Required skills
- automation
- intelligence tooling
- security hardening
- AI-assisted workflows
- verifiable correctness
- iOS
- macOS
- watchOS
- tvOS
- visionOS
Nice to have
- agentic
- LLM-backed developer tooling
- evals
- harnesses
- MCP servers
- code-generation pipelines
Role summary
SPEAR is seeking a Senior Automation & Intelligence Tools Engineer to build and design automation and AI-assisted workflows for security hardening across Apple's operating systems (iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS). The role involves developing tools, frameworks, and infrastructure that enable engineers to ship security-critical code with confidence. Responsibilities include identifying automation opportunities, implementing verification systems, and exploring the application of AI in security development. The ideal candidate will have strong programming skills in Swift, Objective-C, or Python, experience with automated verification at scale, and fluency in AI-assisted development.
Description
You'll join a multi-functional team covering every layer of the operating system - from apps to the kernel - working directly with feature engineers in SEAR and across the wider OS organization. Day to day, you'll decide where automation is worth building, then build it. You own the question of how this team proves that security-critical code does what it claims, without degrading the experience for our customers. You'll also help us work out what AI-native development looks like on a security team: where agents genuinely speed us up, and where we can't trust them yet.
Minimum Qualifications
Strong programming skills in Swift, Objective-C, or Python, with a track record of building tools, frameworks, or infrastructure that other engineers depend on. Experience designing and deploying automated verification at scale, including harnesses and CI systems Real fluency with AI-assisted development. You use LLMs, coding agents, or tooling you've built yourself to get substantially more done, and you can explain how. You've owned an ambiguous technical problem that crossed team boundaries and driven it to something that actually landed. You can explain a technical trade-off clearly enough to change a partner team's mind.
Preferred Qualifications
You've built agentic or LLM-backed developer tooling, such as evals, harnesses, MCP servers, or code-generation pipelines, and you have opinions about where it holds up and where it falls over. Familiarity with XCTest, Xcode, and working in large shared codebases. Background in security, systems-level, or platform software. Experience setting test strategy: assessing risk, deciding what's worth covering, triaging and prioritizing. Curiosity about how systems work end to end, and the patience to find out.
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
- Gameplay Tools EngineerGardens Interactive · Remote · Remote
- Staff Embedded Validation & Tools Engineer - OTAAlso · Palo Alto, CA · Onsite
Cloud & Data Tools EngineerFord · Palo Alto, CA · Hybrid- Cloud & Data Tools EngineerFord Motor Company · Palo Alto, CA · Hybrid
- DevOps and Internal Tools EngineerVividly · Remote · Remote
- AI Tools Engineer, Storage InfrastructureCRUSOE · San Francisco · Onsite
