Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, App Store Search

Apple Inc

Confirmed live today High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: Seattle, WA
Salary: $175,000–$308,500 / yr
Posted: 104 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $234k

This role $242k

$159k $325k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 58% of similar roles. Most pay $214,000–$254,750 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $242k versus about $234k 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 3497 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $174,149–$277,600 across 2702 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Apple Inc

At a glance

TL;DR · Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, App Store Search

Role Posting Log in to save

The Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, App Store Search joins the Apple Services Engineering team to lead the design and development of next-generation search and conversational discovery features. You will architect foundational systems for retrieval, ranking, indexing, query and document understanding, and agentic or RAG-based capabilities. Your daily work involves owning the end-to-end ML lifecycle, building components in large-scale distributed backend systems, and defining technical roadmaps. You will utilize high-performance languages including Go, Java, Python, and Scala, alongside frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, Ray, and JAX. The role requires expertise in generative AI, including Large Language Models, Transformers, and Reinforcement Learning. You will solve complex problems to improve how users discover media and content across various platforms like iOS, macOS, and Apple TV.

Skills

Large Language Models Transformers PyTorch TensorFlow JAX Ray vLLM TensorRT Python Scala Go Java Apache Spark Kubernetes RAG Reinforcement Learning

What you'll do

Architect foundational systems for retrieval, ranking, indexing, query understanding, and RAG-based capabilities.
Own the end-to-end ML lifecycle from formulating objectives and data strategies to production integration.
Build components in large-scale distributed backend systems using Go, Java, Python, or Scala.
Define and drive the technical roadmap for search ML capabilities and long-term strategic goals.
Design A/B experiments with well-defined KPIs to objectively measure system improvements.
Design testing, monitoring, and alerting solutions to maintain high operational SLAs for production systems.
Mentor engineers on ML best practices, code quality, and system design.

What we're looking for

3+ years of relevant industry experience building large-scale ML and data systems.
Familiarity with search or recommendation systems, conversational engines, or related domains.
Strong knowledge of generative AI systems including LLMs, Transformers, Reinforcement Learning, RAG, and agentic patterns.
Experience with distributed ML training frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, Ray, or JAX, and inference engines like TensorRT or vLLM.
Technical leadership skills with a track record of solving complex problems in collaborative environments.
MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related subject area (preferred).
7+ years of hands-on experience building and scaling Search and Conversational systems across the full product stack (preferred).
Proficiency in developing big data pipelines in Scala or Python using frameworks like Apache Spark (preferred).