Senior Design Prototyping Engineer

Apple • Cupertino, CA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Interaction Architecture (IA) is a design and prototyping team within the larger Apple Design Team. We are a diverse team of designers, hardware engineers, software engineers, and makers who explore future experiences for Apple’s existing and speculative products. We apply technical expertise and product thinking to early-stage concepts, most often doing work that incorporates multiple modalities in both hardware and software. IA is looking for a Senior Design Prototyping Engineer with excellent interaction design sensibilities and strong technical and interpersonal skills. You will help us “learn by doing”, working rapidly and cross-functionally to understand and express key capabilities of future products and technologies by creating interactive prototypes to guide decision-making and build intuition across the company. The work balances craft and perspective - shaping direction in ambiguous spaces, connecting ideas across disciplines, and designing experiences that feel effortless and grounded. You will collaborate with peers in a design-led environment where critique is constructive and frequent, briefs are intentionally open-ended, and the end goal is the human experience rather than technical perfection. Your work will be instrumental in helping Apple to understand the promises and pitfalls of technologies that may not even exist yet, and will help guide the incubation of those technologies towards product. The ideal candidate builds alignment across teams with different priorities and personalities, is self-motivated and proactive, works both independently and collaboratively, and can effectively engage on ambiguous briefs as well as on specific, directed work. A Senior Design Engineer would be expected to both produce their own work and to direct the work of others.

Requirements

• 3+ years working at Apple in Cupertino in a design or prototyping role
• Considerable experience prototyping interactions for a broad range of product types
• Experience organizing, directing, and motivating project teams
• A wide range of prototyping skills ranging from scrappy to polished
• Technical fluency in hardware and software prototyping
• Strong product sensibility and ability to advocate for the end user experience
• Cross-disciplinary, exploratory and collaborative, with an ego-less working style that brings colleagues and their contributions together
• A clear communicator, able to deliver coherent stories and documentation that frames the work in the appropriate context
• Able to connect people to ideas in a way that generates excitement
• Adept at sharing work and rationale with senior leadership
• Comfortable with ambiguity, open-ended exploration, and receiving design critique
• Experience managing cross-functional teams
• Significant technical depth in hardware or software prototyping
• Experience working with and building coalitions from diverse teams across a large company

Nice To Haves

• A mentor to others and dedicated to raising the overall quality of design across the group

Responsibilities

• Create interactive prototypes to guide decision-making and build intuition across the company.
• Shape direction in ambiguous spaces, connecting ideas across disciplines, and designing experiences that feel effortless and grounded.
• Collaborate with peers in a design-led environment where critique is constructive and frequent.
• Understand and express key capabilities of future products and technologies.
• Produce their own work and direct the work of others.
• Build alignment across teams with different priorities and personalities.
• Effectively engage on ambiguous briefs as well as on specific, directed work.
• Manage cross-functional teams.
• Build coalitions from diverse teams across a large company.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed