Senior Software Engineer, Apple Services Engineering

Apple • Seattle, WA

1d

About The Position

Apple Services Engineering (ASE) 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 center, with privacy, security, and performance as first-class requirements.

This role will establish the strategy for patching node software across the data center fleet faster and more often while minimizing impact on workloads. The successful candidate will evaluate possible approaches—including live migration, snapshot and restore, kexec-based host updates, live patching, and in-place runtime and VMM upgrades—choose an approach or combination, and make tradeoffs explicit using models of how each approach can fail. The role will define relevant success metrics, design and drive the first implementation using Cloud Hypervisor and Linux microVM runtimes on x86 and arm64, and hire and grow the team. Depending on the candidate's background and interests, the role may be technical lead or people manager. The role also works with SRE, Compute, and security organizations on rollout, safety, and fleet operations.

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.
• Deep, demonstrated experience in either operating live migration, live patching, or kexec-style host updates across a production fleet, including handling non-convergence, aborts, 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 also 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 that carry 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 approaches, selecting an approach or combination, and making tradeoffs explicit based on how each approach can fail.
• Set success metrics, including guest-visible downtime, total migration time, network amplification, abortability, and time to patch the fleet.
• Design and drive the first implementation, building on 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.
• Provide technical direction for the group, with or without formal management responsibility.

What This Job Offers

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