Job Details

Role Number: 200643254-3543

Summary

User privacy is a foundational pillar of Apple’s mission. We build the systems that ensure every user not only understands how their data is used, but has meaningful transparency, consent, and control across the entire Apple ecosystem.

This is a hands-on, systems-level software engineering role at the heart of Apple’s privacy and security architecture. You will design and ship production software that spans iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS, extending to accessories like Apple Watch and AirPods. Your work will directly power the privacy prompts, controls, frameworks, and enforcement mechanisms that millions of users interact with every day.

As part of a team of systems and frameworks engineers, you’ll build robust APIs, services, and UI infrastructure grounded in modern privacy and security best practices — data minimization, on-device processing, secure defaults, principled consent flows, and defense in depth.

Description

The Engineer will design, implement, and debug production systems in C, Objective-C, and Swift that power privacy controls across Apple platforms.

This role centers on architecting and integrating permission frameworks that enable users to meaningfully control how their data is accessed and shared across apps, services, devices, and accessories. These systems govern access to sensitive sensors (e.g., Bluetooth, Location) and protected data stores (e.g., Calendar, Contacts), enforcing privacy at the systems level across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and connected devices.

You will continuously strengthen our privacy architecture to address emerging threat vectors and prevent consent bypass, applying secure-by-design principles and defense-in-depth protections across system boundaries. You will build and ship foundational frameworks, APIs, services, and UI components as part of Apple’s operating systems, participating in all phases of development — from architecture and implementation through validation and ongoing hardening.

The ideal candidate brings strong systems thinking, a deep interest in privacy and security engineering, and a commitment to high-quality software. Excellent communication and collaboration skills are essential to partner across platform, hardware, and application teams to deliver intuitive, trustworthy privacy experiences to millions of users.

Minimum Qualifications

• Proficiency in C, Objective-C, C++, or Swift, with experience writing, compiling, debugging, and shipping production-quality code.

• Experience designing and implementing APIs for system-level services and background daemons.

• Strong understanding of systems programming on Unix-like operating systems, including process models, IPC, memory management, and kernel vs. user-space boundaries.

• Experience building reliable, resilient daemons and system services with robust lifecycle management.

• Ability to anticipate failure modes, design comprehensive error handling, and implement recovery and hardening strategies.

• Clear and effective verbal communication of complex technical concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional experience designing system architectures for software with strong privacy and/or security requirements.

• Experience serving as a technical lead on cross-functional projects spanning multiple teams.

• Systems programming experience on macOS or other Unix-like operating systems.

• Experience working across the full software development lifecycle: planning, architecture, implementation, integration, testing, and long-term maintenance.

• Familiarity with relational databases and local data storage design.

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12ScreenRdr.pdf) .