Software Development Engineer - Test, Accessibility, Apple Services Engineering

Apple•Cupertino, CA

About The Position

At Apple, we build things that are thoughtfully designed and carefully crafted with our users in mind. We’re a diverse collection of problem solvers and doers, continually reimagining our products, systems, and practices to help people do what they love, while outpacing challenges that face a growing organization. In this role, you will own the full testing lifecycle including test strategy, test plan authoring, automation development, execution, and results reporting for critical features across upcoming Apple media product and service releases. You will serve as the primary voice and advocate representing customers who rely on accessibility accommodations to interact with Apple products, ensuring their experience is never an afterthought. A successful candidate will be deeply knowledgeable and passionate about the current assistive technology landscape across all of Apple's platforms and ecosystems. This role is intentionally broad and encompasses accessibility advocacy, software quality engineering, and accessible design expertise. You will architect and maintain scalable UI automation solutions using XCTest/XCUITest, Python, and Swift that empower a lean team to move fast without sacrificing quality. Your automation work will directly reduce manual testing burden, accelerate release confidence, and surface accessibility regressions early in the development cycle. Review upcoming features and projects with an accessibility-first lens, bringing both technical and experiential knowledge to the conversation Provide early-stage feedback and concrete recommendations for accessibility improvements across UI, interaction design, and assistive technology compatibility Build and scale automated accessibility test coverage integrated into E2E pipelines Create thorough test plans that balance automated and manual coverage intelligently Innovate tools and training that help other teams test for accessibility Champion accessible design understanding within your team and across partner teams Represent accessibility concerns in broader engineering discussions, design reviews, and bug triage Your passion, technical depth, and advocacy will directly shape the experience of millions of users and raise the bar for what truly inclusive software looks like at Apple.

Requirements

Significant experience in Quality Assurance Engineering or Software Development Engineering in Test (SDET), with deep knowledge of the software development lifecycle.
Hands-on experience building and maintaining UI automation frameworks at scale, with a focus on reliability and long-term maintainability.
Proficiency in Python for test scripting, tooling, and automation infrastructure.
Proficiency in Swift and/or SwiftUI, with practical experience writing and maintaining XCTest and XCUITest suites for Apple platform applications.
Experience designing automation solutions that enable a small team to maintain high software quality across a broad surface area.
Deeply knowledgeable about assistive technology features across all of Apple's platforms and ecosystems, including but not limited to VoiceOver, Switch Control, Voice Control and Display Accommodations.
Experience with manual end-to-end testing to complement and validate automated coverage.
Passionate about equitable and inclusive UI/UX and believes accessibility is a quality issue, not a checkbox.
Thorough familiarity with screen readers including VoiceOver, TalkBack, NVDA, and Narrator, and experience incorporating them into structured test workflows.
Strong working knowledge of WCAG guidelines and accessibility best practices for native and web experiences.
A genuine understanding of accessible design principles and the ability to evaluate and communicate design decisions through an accessibility lens.
Experience authoring clear, detailed, and reproducible bug reports that effectively communicate impact to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Comfortable working with, presenting to, and facilitating decisions among senior and cross-functional leaders.
Superb verbal and written communication skills, equally effective with engineering teams and executive audiences.

Responsibilities

Own the full testing lifecycle including test strategy, test plan authoring, automation development, execution, and results reporting for critical features across upcoming Apple media product and service releases.
Serve as the primary voice and advocate representing customers who rely on accessibility accommodations to interact with Apple products, ensuring their experience is never an afterthought.
Architect and maintain scalable UI automation solutions using XCTest/XCUITest, Python, and Swift.
Review upcoming features and projects with an accessibility-first lens, bringing both technical and experiential knowledge to the conversation.
Provide early-stage feedback and concrete recommendations for accessibility improvements across UI, interaction design, and assistive technology compatibility.
Build and scale automated accessibility test coverage integrated into E2E pipelines.
Create thorough test plans that balance automated and manual coverage intelligently.
Innovate tools and training that help other teams test for accessibility.
Champion accessible design understanding within your team and across partner teams.
Represent accessibility concerns in broader engineering discussions, design reviews, and bug triage.