Sr. Machine Learning Engineer - Answers, Knowledge & Information (AKI)

Apple’s Geo domain team is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to build machine learning and LLM-based systems that interpret user queries, rank documents, and surface useful local answers through Siri and Spotlight. The role focuses on improving search quality across the full pipeline, from query understanding to retrieval and ranking.

Role Overview

As a senior member of the AKI (Answers, Knowledge & Information) team, you will own end-to-end machine learning development to enhance how local information is understood and delivered. You will work on models and systems that support query understanding, document ranking, and overall search relevance.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the entire ML development cycle, from opportunity analysis, exploration, and prototyping through data collection, feature engineering, training, evaluation, and production deployment.
• Lead development of machine learning models to improve search quality across retrieval, ranking, reranking, and query understanding.
• Enhance search quality and user experience by applying techniques such as learning-to-rank, embedding models, contrastive learning, multi-task learning, and reinforcement learning where appropriate.
• Provide technical leadership by mentoring junior engineers and contributing to the architecture of ML systems and model design.
• Translate product requirements into modeling tasks and engineering tasks.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in information retrieval, natural language processing, machine learning, or deep learning.
• Deep understanding of machine learning theory, including supervised learning, ranking models, embeddings, representation learning, and evaluation metrics.
• Proven ability to apply advanced ML techniques to improve search relevance and retrieval quality at scale.
• Comfort leading experimentation, offline evaluation, and online A/B testing to support iterative improvements in search quality.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to work independently and collaboratively.
• Master’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience in machine learning or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced diploma in AI, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or Mathematics.

Technology Focus

• LLMs

Location

Santa Clara, CA (onsite)

Compensation

Base pay range: USD 175,000 - 308,500 per year.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
• Retirement benefits
• Discounted products and free services
• Reimbursement for certain educational expenses, including tuition
• Participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs (eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards)
• Ability to purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in the Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation (might be eligible)

Education

Master’s Degree in Computer Science.