The Senior Applied Researcher role at Apple Services Engineering focuses on advancing Generative AI and large language models within the organization. This position is ideal for a technical leader who has successfully transitioned research ideas into production systems. The role emphasizes foundational intelligence capabilities across various Apple Services, including language understanding and growth optimization. Candidates will work in a dynamic environment that values innovation and autonomy.

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, Statistics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience delivering production AI systems.
• Expert knowledge of deep learning and modern NLP, including transformer architectures and foundation model adaptation.
• Experience with LLM model development, including fine-tuning, instruction tuning, and prompt engineering for domain-specific reasoning.
• Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow, with experience deploying models in production systems.
• Strong understanding of distributed data processing systems and large-scale experimentation.

• Influence and implement foundational intelligence capabilities across Apple Services.
• Communicate research outcomes, architectural decisions, and technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Develop and optimize retrieval-augmented generation pipelines and vector-based semantic search systems.
• Evaluate models for language quality, relevance, hallucination, and safety.
• Design and develop reinforcement learning or multi-armed bandit experiment platforms.

• Employees at Apple are often offered comprehensive benefits that support physical and mental well-being—flexible medical plans, confidential counseling, onsite wellness centers at major campuses, and resources for fitness and daily life. Families typically receive fertility support, paid parental leave with gradual return, caregiving leave, and dependent-care guidance, while financial perks commonly include stock grants (with purchase discounts), 401(k) matching, and income-protection coverage. Employees also see robust time off, Apple University learning and tuition reimbursement, donation matching and paid volunteer hours, and deep product and partner discounts.