Compute Runtime Software Engineer

Apple•Seattle, WA

23h

About The Position

The Apple Services Engineering team builds container and virtualization runtime technology for Apple’s next-generation compute platform. The team develops virtualization-based runtimes for virtual machines and Linux containers across Apple’s data centers and platforms, with privacy, security, and performance as core requirements. It also maintains Apple Container, an open-source project that brings native container support to macOS desktops. This foundational systems role works across kernel and container security, image distribution, filesystems, and virtualization. The work includes solving new infrastructure challenges on Apple hardware in the data center and developing open-source desktop tooling for macOS developers. The engineer is expected to bring deep expertise across multiple technical areas, own significant technologies, design major features, and resolve complex, ambiguous problems. The role also involves setting technical direction and standards across the organization and mentoring engineers at all levels.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent related experience.
At least 3 years of software design and development experience in infrastructure engineering, such as compute, storage, or network virtualization, with an emphasis on microservices architectures and containerization.
Advanced proficiency in C, C++, Swift, or Go, with a track record of designing and developing high-performance, secure, scalable, and reliable systems.
Hands-on experience with some or all of Linux containerization, Linux filesystems, image distribution, content storage, and kernel and container security.
Experience owning technical design end-to-end, from design documents and architecture tradeoffs through implementation and review.
Experience with Linux systems programming.
Experience leading code reviews for team standards, correctness, and test coverage, and raising the technical bar for other engineers.
Experience defining and executing test strategies for complex systems, including regression prevention, negative-case validation, and security testing.
Development experience in one or more of cloud security, container or Linux kernel security, and API security.
Experience troubleshooting and analyzing metrics to identify resource contention and bottlenecks.
Experience designing benchmarks and load tests to characterize performance and establish scalability models.

Nice To Haves

Development experience with container orchestration systems such as Docker or Kubernetes.
Development experience with virtualization and container technologies such as Apple Container, Kata, Firecracker, or KubeVirt.
Systems programming experience on Darwin with Swift.
Experience programming system virtualization based on Cloud Hypervisor, rust-vmm, macOS Virtualization Framework, QEMU, or KVM.
Understanding of shared networked storage solutions such as iSCSI, NFS, and cluster filesystems.

Responsibilities

Design and develop virtualization-based runtimes for virtual machines and Linux containers across Apple data centers and platforms.
Develop foundational systems technology involving kernel and container security, image distribution, content storage, filesystems, and virtualization.
Maintain Apple Container, an open-source project that enables native container support on macOS desktops.
Own significant technologies and drive ideas from inception through design and implementation.
Create and review technical designs, architecture tradeoffs, and implementation plans.
Lead code reviews to uphold team standards, correctness, and test coverage.
Define and execute test strategies, including regression prevention, negative-case validation, and security testing.
Troubleshoot performance issues and analyze metrics to identify resource contention and bottlenecks.
Design benchmarks and load tests to characterize performance and establish scalability models.
Provide technical direction and standards across the organization and mentor engineers at all levels.