Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET), Creative Apps

Apple • Cupertino, CA

20h

About The Position

The Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) will help ensure the quality of creative applications across Apple’s iOS and macOS platforms. The role works across the software development lifecycle, partnering with software engineers and product managers to make quality an input to product design and delivery.

The SDET will build and own production-grade automated test suites and UI automation infrastructure, integrating them into live CI/CD pipelines to identify regressions and support confident release decisions. The role also drives test strategy for feature areas, identifies coverage gaps through root cause analysis, and improves team-wide quality practices through new tools and GenAI-assisted workflows. Manual functional and exploratory testing is performed when automation is not yet available or is insufficient for complex workflows.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of hands-on experience in SDET, QA automation, or software engineering with a testing focus.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and Swift for building automated test frameworks and test tooling.
• Practical command of the full software development lifecycle, with experience embedding quality gates from design review through release.
• Proven experience designing and executing multi-layer test strategies spanning functional, integration, regression, and exploratory testing.
• Direct experience building UI automation with XCUITest or XUI frameworks against real Apple platform targets.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines and maintain them as living infrastructure.
• Applied LLM or GenAI tooling to test generation, failure analysis, or coverage gap identification in a real engineering workflow.
• Built prompt-engineering techniques into QA or developer tooling that measurably improved output quality or throughput.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, or equivalent depth demonstrated through industry work.

Nice To Haves

• Shipped quality automation across both iOS and macOS over multiple full release cycles.
• Drove infrastructure improvements such as framework refactors, pipeline optimizations, or coverage initiatives, with documented impact on defect escape rates or release velocity.
• Extended automation beyond functional testing into performance, accessibility, or localization validation.
• Familiarity with photo and video editing applications or media-processing workflows, including testing or validating complex media-related features.

Responsibilities

• Build production-grade automated test suites in Python and Swift to validate iOS and macOS features across unit, integration, and regression testing.
• Own UI automation infrastructure end-to-end, including XCUITest/XUI framework design and CI/CD pipeline integration.
• Drive test strategy for feature areas by defining coverage models, risk tiers, and quality gates that inform release decisions.
• Identify and close coverage gaps through root cause analysis, translating triage findings into systemic automation improvements.
• Evaluate and integrate emerging tools, including GenAI-assisted test generation and prompt-engineering workflows, to improve team-wide quality practices.
• Perform manual functional testing as needed for new features, regressions, and complex or exploratory user workflows not yet covered by automation.

What This Job Offers

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