Senior Compute Runtime Software Engineer

Apple • Seattle, WA

1d

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 provides native container support on macOS.

This foundational systems role works on areas including kernel and container security, image distribution, filesystems, and virtualization. The work includes greenfield systems challenges associated with operating on Apple hardware in data centers, as well as open-source desktop tooling for macOS developers. The engineer is expected to bring expertise across multiple technical areas, design major features, resolve complex and ambiguous problems, and take ownership of significant technologies from inception through implementation. The role also involves providing technical direction and standards, mentoring engineers at all levels, and collaborating on open-source projects.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent related experience.
• At least 8 years of software design and development experience in infrastructure engineering, including compute, storage, and network virtualization, with an emphasis on microservices architectures and containerization.
• Advanced programming proficiency in C, C++, Swift, or Go.
• 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.
• Track record of owning technical design end to end, from design documentation and architecture tradeoffs through implementation and review.
• Depth across multiple technical areas and ability to design major features and address highly complex, ambiguous problems.

Nice To Haves

• Linux system programming experience.
• Experience leading code reviews to uphold team standards, correctness, and test coverage, and to raise 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 cloud security, container or Linux kernel security, or API security.
• Experience troubleshooting systems and analyzing metrics to identify resource contention and bottlenecks.
• Experience designing benchmarks and load tests to characterize performance and establish scalability models.
• 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 data centers and Apple platforms.
• Develop foundational systems technology involving kernel and container security, image distribution, filesystems, and virtualization.
• Take end-to-end ownership of technical designs, including design documentation, architectural tradeoffs, implementation, and review.
• Design major features and resolve complex, ambiguous technical problems.
• Drive ideas from inception through implementation, course-correcting as needed.
• Provide technical direction and establish standards across the organization.
• Mentor engineers at all levels.
• Contribute to and maintain Apple Container, an open-source macOS container project.
• Collaborate across teams and with the open-source community.

What This Job Offers

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