Software Engineering Technical Lead, Apple Card & Savings

What you'll do

• Architect, build, and operate mission-critical distributed services for Apple Card and Savings at scale.
• Lead multi-quarter engineering efforts including complex integrations with financial institutions and payment networks.
• Author technical specifications and represent the company in technical negotiations with external partners.
• Define and enforce service level objectives, progressive release strategies, and automation standards.
• Lead incident response and translate operational learnings into lasting architectural improvements.
• Review code and designs to ensure systems are built for testability and high engineering standards.
• Mentor senior engineers and shape the engineering strategy and culture of the broader team.
• Evaluate and adopt AI-assisted development tools to improve code quality and review throughput.

What we're looking for

• Demonstrated track record of architecting, building, and operating mission-critical distributed systems at large scale while remaining hands-on in code.
• Expert hands-on software development skills in Kotlin or Java.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems trade-offs in consistency, latency, throughput, and data correctness patterns.
• Extensive operational experience leading incident response, defining service level objectives, and translating operational learnings into architectural improvements.
• Track record of leading complex, cross-team projects from conception to production and driving consensus with diverse audiences and external partners.
• Testing-first approach to engineering, including designing for testability and defining unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end testing strategies.
• Experience using generative AI tools throughout the software development lifecycle to produce high-quality software.
• Deep expertise with Spring and high-volume REST/gRPC services (preferred); experience in payments, banking, or regulated financial domains (preferred).