Apple · 3 weeks ago
Machine Learning Engineer – Recommendations & Personalization (Feature Engineering)
Seattle, WA
Full-time
Onsite
Mid, Senior Level
$172K/yr - $302K/yr
4+ years expApple Services Engineering embodies Apple's commitment to uniting creativity with technology and is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer specializing in Recommendations & Personalization. The role involves designing, optimizing, and deploying end-to-end recommendation flows, collaborating with researchers and engineers to enhance user experiences through advanced machine learning systems.
AppsArtificial Intelligence (AI)BroadcastingDigital EntertainmentFoundational AIMedia and EntertainmentMobile DevicesOperating SystemsTVWearables
Responsibilities
Pioneer Generative Architectures: Collaborate with research teams to prototype, evaluate, and integrate LLM-driven or generative recommendation architectures, encompassing retrieval, sophisticated ranking, and conversational understanding
Build Scalable ML Platform: Develop modular ML infrastructure and tooling that accelerates experimentation, safe deployment, and continuous integration—including robust model serving, versioning, rollback strategies, and online evaluation frameworks
Craft High-Performance Services: Design, build, and maintain low-latency, high-throughput inference services in Go, Rust, Java, Python, or similar programming languages, operating at Apple's immense scale
Optimize Recommendation Pipelines: Engineer, implement, and optimize large-scale recommendation and personalization pipelines, including both efficient batch processing and ultra-responsive real-time serving systems
Advance Feature Engineering: Design and implement robust data and feature pipelines, including support for online feature stores, streaming updates, and real-time feature generation
Enhance System Reliability: Partner with infrastructure teams to elevate system observability, reliability, and performance optimization across critical recommendation workloads
Drive Model Evaluation: Lead the design and execution of A/B tests and continuous online evaluation of personalization models, ensuring alignment with product goals and measurable user impact
Explore Agentic Systems: Participate in exploratory initiatives around agentic orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, LangChain) and their transformative application to adaptive recommendation workflows
Qualification
Required
BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field
4+ years of hands-on experience developing and deploying production-grade ML systems for personalization, ranking, or recommendation
Strong software engineering skills in Go, Rust, Java, Python, or similar languages, with a proven focus on building scalable, high-performance, and reliable services
Extensive experience with distributed data and ML systems (e.g., Ray, Spark) and model lifecycle management
Deep understanding of recommendation model architectures, inference optimization techniques, and practical feedback loop implementations
Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and analyzing A/B tests or advanced online evaluation frameworks
A strong commitment to system reliability, observability, and ultra-low latency in large-scale ML environments
Preferred
Strong theoretical understanding and hands-on experience in agent development, LLM fine-tuning, or post-training optimization
Familiarity with or practical experience using modular LLM tooling frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain
Background in feature store design, embedding systems, or advanced vector retrieval techniques for recommendation pipelines
Expertise in real-time inference, autoscaling strategies, traffic shaping, and cost-performance optimization for ML services
Experience deploying and managing ML workloads on Kubernetes or other containerized environments
Exposure to reinforcement learning, multi-objective ranking, or generative retrieval architectures
Prior work experience in large consumer media or content recommendation domains
Benefits
Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
Retirement benefits
A range of discounted products and free services
Reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition
Discretionary bonuses or commission payments
Relocation
Company
Apple
Apple is a technology company that designs, manufactures, and markets consumer electronics, personal computers, and software.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Apple has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
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2025 (6998)
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2023 (3939)
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2020 (3656)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$5.67BKey Investors
Berkshire HathawayMicrosoftSequoia Capital
2025-05-05Post Ipo Debt· $4.5B
2025-01-16Post Ipo Debt· $0.31M
2021-04-30Post Ipo Equity
Leadership Team
Tim Cook
CEO
Craig Federighi
SVP, Software Engineering
Recent News
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2025-12-01
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2025-09-25
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