Job Information
Apple Sr Performance Engineer, Retail and Marcom Engineering in Sunnyvale, California
Weekly Hours: 40
Role Number: 200645082-3956
Summary
Apple is where individual imaginations gather together, committing to the values that lead to great work. Every new product we build, service we create, or Apple Store experience we deliver is the result of us making each other's ideas stronger.
Apple Retail Engineering team builds the software systems that power all the magical experiences we offer to our Store customers, be it digital or in-person. Retail Engineering Foundations group focuses on developer productivity, runtime environments, and common frameworks & platforms for all Retail Engineering teams.
As a Performance Engineer, you'll design and optimize foundational frameworks, platforms, and systems that Apple engineers rely on every day. You'll establish performance standards and best practices across Retail Engineering, leading technical decisions that improve system scalability, efficiency, and reliability. You'll play a critical role in planning for and managing performance during Apple's largest retail events, ensuring our systems gracefully handle unprecedented traffic. Through mentoring and partnerships with engineering teams, you'll elevate performance practices across the organization while exploring all the ways to improve system performance throughout the software development lifecycle.
Description
As a Performance Engineer, you will architect, design, implement, optimize, and govern performance characteristics of infrastructure and frameworks for DevOps, CI/CD, runtime environments, service discovery, API gateways, observability, and other foundational components of cloud-based, globally-distributed systems.
You will take ownership of performance-critical initiatives, from analysis and planning to optimization strategy and guiding teams through adoption of performance best practices. You will work collaboratively with Retail Engineering teams, platform owners, and infrastructure teams to identify performance bottlenecks, architect scalability solutions, and establish performance baselines, goals, and service level objectives for mission-critical systems.
You will lead capacity planning and performance readiness efforts for major retail events, working cross-functionally to forecast traffic patterns, stress-test systems, and implement mitigation strategies that ensure uninterrupted service during peak demand periods.
Minimum Qualifications
B.S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent professional work experience. Graduate degrees preferred.
12+ years of professional experience in software, infrastructure, or platform engineering roles
8+ years of hands-on experience analyzing, optimizing, and architecting performance improvements in large-scale, distributed systems
5+ years of hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code, containerized application deployment, and orchestration technologies
Proficiency in at least two programming languages with demonstrated expertise in performance optimization, concurrency, and memory management
Understanding of relational and NoSQL databases, query optimization, and performance implications in distributed systems
Knowledge of networking concepts and their performance characteristics
Preferred Qualifications
15+ years of progressive experience with demonstrated depth in multiple domains: distributed systems architecture, performance optimization at scale, infrastructure platforms, DevOps/SRE, or cloud systems architecture
Track record of building and developing high-performing teams
Experience with performance governance frameworks, SLOs, error budgets, and technical debt management
Deep expertise in observability architecture, distributed database design, edge/CDN systems, or real-time systems
Understanding of cost optimization and infrastructure efficiency alongside performance
Experience with open source projects related to infrastructure or distributed systems
Experience establishing performance benchmarks and metrics frameworks
Familiarity with auto-scaling strategies, traffic routing, and graceful degradation patterns
Proven ability to analyze complex system performance issues, design optimization solutions, and implement measurable improvements
Knowledge of container orchestration and deployment efficiency best practices
Understanding of compliance and security concepts and their performance tradeoffs
Experience with capacity planning, load forecasting, and stress testing for high-traffic scenarios
Demonstrated ability to influence and drive adoption across teams without direct authority
Experience presenting technical findings and recommendations to senior leadership
Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12ScreenRdr.pdf) .