Principal AI & Data Governance Architect

Apple • Cupertino, CA

3d

About The Position

Apple is building a machine learning lifecycle platform that powers generative AI features across Apple Services, including Music, TV+, iCloud, App Store, and Sports. The Principal AI & Data Governance Architect will define and drive holistic governance and compliance architecture for the AI and ML platform, designing platform capabilities that help Apple meet legal, regulatory, and ethical obligations throughout the data and model lifecycle.

The role bridges compliance requirements and engineering implementation. It partners with legal, privacy, data engineering, ML infrastructure, and research teams to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions and embed governance controls into the platform. It also develops standards and architectural patterns for consistent adoption across Apple Services and advises senior stakeholders on governance risks, compliance gaps, and architectural trade-offs.

Requirements

• Deep experience in data governance, ML governance, or compliance architecture in complex, large-scale technical environments.
• Deep understanding of ML workflows, data engineering, and ML infrastructure, with the ability to contribute to design and architectural discussions.
• Proven experience working cross-functionally with legal, privacy, compliance, and engineering teams to define and implement governance solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to translate legal and regulatory requirements into technical architecture and engineering deliverables.
• Ability to translate defined or loosely specified compliance obligations into precise technical requirements while preserving their intent.
• Ability to operate in ambiguity and drive clarity across organizations with different vocabularies and priorities.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a similar degree.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred.
• Familiarity with AI/ML regulatory frameworks and emerging legislation, such as the EU AI Act, GDPR, CCPA, and data residency requirements.
• Experience designing or implementing data classification systems, data catalogs, or model registries in a production ML environment.
• Experience building governance frameworks for internal developer platforms or MLOps tooling.
• Comfort presenting complex compliance and architectural topics to senior and executive engineering and legal audiences.

Responsibilities

• Architect end-to-end AI and data governance frameworks, including controls for data classification, lineage, model provenance, access management, and audit trails across the ML lifecycle.
• Translate requirements from legal, privacy, and regulatory stakeholders into durable, scalable technical solutions mapped to systems, pipelines, and data assets.
• Bridge legal counsel, privacy teams, data engineering, ML infrastructure, and ML researchers, ensuring compliance requirements are understood technically and engineering decisions reflect regulatory requirements.
• Lead the strategy and architecture for classifying, cataloging, and governing sensitive, regulated, and proprietary data assets across AI and ML use cases.
• Track relevant legal and regulatory requirements, including data residency, retention, auditability, fairness, and emerging AI regulation, and position platform architecture to meet evolving obligations.
• Partner with data and AI/ML infrastructure teams to embed governance controls natively into the platform.
• Develop standards, playbooks, and architectural patterns that engineering teams across Apple Services can adopt consistently.
• Advise senior stakeholders by presenting governance risks, compliance gaps, and architectural trade-offs to technical and executive audiences.
• Engage with legal and policy stakeholders upstream to help shape technically coherent policy guidance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal