Software Engineering Manager, Tools Team

Apple • Cupertino, CA

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

The System Firmware & Diagnostics organization is seeking a Software Engineering Manager to lead a team of full stack developers building advanced tooling and automation used by engineering teams across Apple. Our tools drive engineering productivity and have broad, meaningful impact across the company. This role is a rare opportunity to lead a high-impact team at the early stages of Apple's adoption of AI in internal tooling — with an open charter to build what's missing.

As the Software Engineering Manager for the Tools team, you will lead and develop a team of full stack engineers distributed across multiple sites in the US. This is a hands-on leadership role: you'll contribute code, guide architectural decisions, set the technical roadmap, and stay close to the craft. You'll be trusted to make sound engineering decisions alongside your team, balancing an ambitious feature roadmap with the work of modernizing existing areas of the codebase for scale and stability. You'll also partner with engineering teams across Apple to build tools that drive optimization, efficiency, and scalability — including applying modern AI techniques like LLM integration, RAG, and agentic workflows to make tools that are smarter and more capable.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2+ years of experience managing software engineering teams, or strong experience as a technical lead or technical product manager ready to step into formal management.
• 5+ years of software development experience designing and building complex, highly available, large scale web applications.
• Experience with front end technologies like HTML5, CSS3, TypeScript, and modern JavaScript frameworks such as React, Next.js, or equivalent.
• Experience with server side development in Node.js
• Experience developing and maintaining Python libraries.
• Experience with API design and development using REST and/or GraphQL.
• Able to travel domestically

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience integrating LLMs into production systems (AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, or similar), including RAG pipelines — experience building agentic systems is a plus.
• Experience managing or leading distributed teams across multiple sites and time zones.
• Experience building and supporting business-critical internal tools or developer platforms.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging platforms like Kafka.
• Experience with blob storage technologies like S3
• Experience with OAuth2, JWT, and other authentication and authorization mechanisms.
• Proficient in software development best practices, including version control with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing frameworks.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with teams located in different locations.
• A genuine passion for mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of full stack engineers distributed across multiple sites in the US.
• Contribute code, guide architectural decisions, and set the technical roadmap.
• Make sound engineering decisions, balancing an ambitious feature roadmap with modernizing existing areas of the codebase for scale and stability.
• Partner with engineering teams across Apple to build tools that drive optimization, efficiency, and scalability.
• Apply modern AI techniques like LLM integration, RAG, and agentic workflows to make tools smarter and more capable.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees