Senior Software Engineer, Apple Services Engineering

Apple • Seattle, WA

23h

About The Position

Apple Services Engineering builds container and virtualization runtime technology for Apple’s next-generation compute platform. This role will establish a new team focused on patching node software across Apple’s data center fleet faster and more frequently, with minimal impact on running workloads. The team has not selected an approach; potential options include live migration, snapshot and restore, kexec-based host updates, live patching, and in-place upgrades of the runtime and VMM, as well as other approaches.

The successful candidate will define the fleet patching strategy, evaluate alternatives and their tradeoffs, model how approaches can fail, and determine how results should be measured. They will design and drive the first implementation using Cloud Hypervisor and Linux microVM runtimes on x86 and arm64. The role will also hire and grow the team and collaborate with SRE, Compute, and security organizations on rollout, safety, and fleet operations. Depending on the candidate’s background and interests, the position may be a technical-lead or people-management role.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent related experience.
• At least 8 years of software design and development experience in infrastructure engineering, such as compute, storage, and network virtualization.
• Deep, demonstrated experience in either operating live migration, live patching, or kexec-style host updates across a production fleet, including non-convergence, aborts and rollback, and fleet-wide rollout safety; or building live migration, snapshot/restore, or device-state serialization inside a hypervisor or VMM. Working fluency in the other area is required.
• Advanced proficiency in C, C++, Rust, Swift, or Go, with a track record of designing and developing high-performance, secure, scalable, and reliable systems.
• Track record of owning technical design end-to-end, from design documents and architecture tradeoffs through implementation and review.
• Experience setting technical direction for a group of engineers, with or without formal management responsibility.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Linux kernel and system programming, including KVM, userfaultfd, VFIO, kexec, or kernel live patching.
• Understanding of dirty-page tracking, memory and device state handling, and time and CPU-model compatibility across hosts.
• Experience with live migration of devices carrying hardware state, such as VFIO, vDPA, or SR-IOV.
• Experience designing benchmarks and load tests to characterize downtime and performance impact during an upgrade.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source virtualization projects such as Cloud Hypervisor, rust-vmm, QEMU, or KVM.
• Experience with Kubernetes node lifecycle, draining, and fleet rollout orchestration.
• Experience building a new team from zero, including hiring.

Responsibilities

• Define the fleet patching strategy by evaluating candidate and alternative approaches, selecting an approach, and making tradeoffs explicit based on how each approach can fail.
• Set relevant metrics, such as guest-visible downtime, total migration time, network amplification, abortability, and time to patch the fleet.
• Design and drive the first implementation using Cloud Hypervisor and Linux microVM runtimes on x86 and arm64.
• Hire and grow the team.
• Work with SRE, Compute, and security organizations on rollout, safety, and fleet operations.
• Set technical direction for a group of engineers.

What This Job Offers

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