This role pays more than
90%
of similar roles. Most pay
$144,875–$231,150
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$255k
versus about
$188k
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
2299 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$175,000–$277,600
across 1870 roles with salary data.
Sr. Software Engineer, Infrastructure Services (Data Plane) joins the Infrastructure Services team within the Information Systems and Technology organization. This role focuses on designing, building, and operating next-generation services that power virtualized networks, computing, and storage for a global cloud infrastructure. The engineer will develop high-throughput, ultra-low-latency packet processing systems, forwarding engines, and overlay network services like VXLAN and NAT while collaborating with distributed systems teams to build gRPC and REST APIs. Key responsibilities include optimizing line-rate forwarding pipelines, managing state distribution, and performing incident triage using telemetry and packet captures. Required skills include proficiency in C++, Go, or C, and deep knowledge of L2–L4 protocols, TCP/IP stack behavior, and memory management. Preferred experience includes kernel-bypass technologies like DPDK, XDP, eBPF, VPP, OVS, P4, and hardware offload architectures such as SmartNICs and ASICs.
What does a Software Engineer earn in California?
Median $214000 from 769 postings across 67 companies.
Design and optimize high-throughput, ultra-low-latency packet processing systems and forwarding engines.
Implement overlay network services including VXLAN, Geneve, NAT, and load balancing.
Develop modular, resilient systems using efficient data structures and lock-free concurrency.
Build performant APIs for state distribution and policy enforcement in coordination with control plane teams.
Debug live production incidents using packet captures, telemetry, metrics, and logs to identify root causes.
Implement long-term mitigations for identified infrastructure issues to ensure operational excellence.
Deliver software reliably through modern CI/CD pipelines and configuration management tools.
What we're looking for
Proficiency in systems programming languages such as C++, Go, or C.
Solid foundation in computer science fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, memory management, and concurrency.
Deep knowledge of networking fundamentals and dataplane internals like L2–L4 protocols, TCP/IP stack, and routing.
Experience designing and optimizing scalable network data plane components, packet forwarding paths, or kernel/userspace networking subsystems.
Understanding of microservice architectures, asynchronous communication, and API design using REST, gRPC, or Protobuf.
Ability to analyze and debug complex live production incidents using metrics, traces, and system logs.
Experience with Git and modern build/configuration management tools.
8+ years experience with kernel-bypass/accelerated packet processing technologies (DPDK, XDP, eBPF, VPP, OVS, or P4) (preferred); BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent experience (preferred).
Go
Java
C++
Python
C
Git
Terraform
OpenTofu
ArgoCD
GitLab CI
infrastructure-as-code
micro-services
RESTful APIs
eBPF
iptables
nftables
OVS
IPv4
IPv6
DNS
SDN
Distributed Systems