The Senior Software Engineer role in Apple's Backbone Engineering group focuses on designing, building, and scaling next-generation Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) platforms. This team operates one of the world's most extensive and critical Global Wide Area Networks (WAN), ensuring the technology that supports Apple's global operations runs flawlessly. The position requires a passion for distributed systems and the ability to handle global complexity at immense scale. The engineer will lead the architecture and implementation of various network services and systems.

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems and network software.
• Strong programming proficiency in Go (Golang), C, or Python.
• Hands-on experience developing secure, high-throughput microservices using gRPC, Protocol Buffers, and REST with TLS/mTLS.
• Solid foundation in distributed systems principles including consensus algorithms, state synchronization, concurrency, and fault tolerance.
• Experience with declarative configuration modeling and automated config deployment workflows to network devices.
• Direct experience designing and building fault-tolerant mechanisms for network services.
• Deep foundation in computer science fundamentals including distributed systems architecture and systems design.
• Demonstrated ability to model complex failure domains and reason about system behavior under extreme load.
• Direct experience developing SDN Controllers or WAN Traffic Engineering platforms in hyperscale networks.
• Proven track record with modern observability tools and robust CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong working knowledge of core routing protocols and architectures.
• Deep domain knowledge in Software-Defined Networking control and data planes.
• Hands-on experience with routing daemons and multi-vendor NOS APIs.
• Experience with streaming telemetry and programmability tooling.
• Familiarity with next-generation optical transport networks.
• Experience with Linux networking internals and container orchestration.

• Lead the architecture and implementation of distributed WAN controllers.
• Design automated configuration generation and intent-push engines.
• Develop real-time streaming telemetry pipelines.
• Govern global traffic routing and path computation.
• Build carrier-grade platforms from the ground up.
• Ensure network resiliency and fault tolerance in systems.

• 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.