Senior Software Development Engineer in Test, LLM Evaluation & Automation

Apple Inc

Confirmed live 2 days ago High trust

Quick summary

Work type
On-site
Location
San Diego, CA
Salary
$175,000–$308,500 / yr
Posted
36 days ago
Freshness
Confirmed live 2 days ago

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $176k
This role $242k
$108k most similar roles pay here $330k

This role pays more than 93% of similar roles. Most pay $149,500–$202,800 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $242k versus about $176k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Apple Inc

Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company known for designing and manufacturing consumer electronics, software, and online services, including the iPhone, Mac, iPad, and App Store. Industry: Consumer Electronics & Software

Apple Inc currently has 1984 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $175,000–$277,600 across 1590 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Senior Software Development Engineer in Test, LLM Evaluation & Automation

Senior Software Development Engineer in Test — LLM Evaluation & Automation, T3E joins the Apple Intelligence Platform Experience Validation team to lead automated model evaluation as a senior individual contributor. This role focuses on building infrastructure and tooling to catch model regressions before they reach human evaluation or live populations. You will design and maintain LLM-as-a-judge evaluation harnesses, curate eval sets and rubrics, and develop both component-level and end-to-end test coverage for generative features like image generation and natural-language responses. Key responsibilities include triaging results to distinguish regressions from noise and packaging reusable libraries for other teams. Required skills include Python, data-pipeline fluency with JSON/YAML and REST APIs, and experience with LLM-as-a-judge evaluation. You will solve complex problems regarding model quality, ensuring that generated content is sensible and aligns with user intent across various generative AI features.

What does a Software Development Engineer in Test earn in California?

Median $208400 from 30 postings across 6 companies.

See salary data

What you'll do

  • Design and maintain LLM-as-a-judge evaluation harnesses integrated into CI and automation pipelines.
  • Author and curate evaluation sets and rubrics to judge model outputs at scale.
  • Triage large evaluation results to distinguish actual model regressions from infrastructure noise or rubric errors.
  • Build test coverage ranging from low-level component tests to full end-to-end user flows for generative features.
  • Develop reusable libraries and tools for evaluation tasks that can be adopted by other engineering teams.
  • Establish quality gates and reporting systems to catch model regressions before human evaluation or public release.
  • Create automated systems to evaluate image generation, natural language responses, and summarized content.

What we're looking for

  • BS in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
  • Three years of relevant industry experience in test automation, software development, or related areas.
  • Strong practical knowledge of Python and data-pipeline fluency including JSON, YAML, and REST APIs.
  • Hands-on experience with LLM-as-a-judge evaluation and rubric design.
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals to build maintainable pipelines and tooling rather than just scripts.
  • Experience integrating with CI/CD systems and deploying tools as reusable libraries.
  • Familiarity with generative model behavior including image generation, NLP, or LLM output evaluation.
  • Experience with database/query tooling such as SQL and dashboards for reporting quality trends.

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