Backend Engineer, AI/ML Data Generation and Verification

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. That happens because every one of us shares a belief that we can make something wonderful and share it with the world, changing lives for the better. It’s the diversity of our people and their thinking that inspires the innovation that runs through everything we do. When we bring everybody in, we can do the best work of our lives. Here, you’ll do more than join something — you’ll add something. As part of Apple’s central data annotation engineering team, you’ll help build the next generation of AI-powered user experiences. Our work provides high-quality datasets and expert feedback to train machine learning models and evaluate their performance across all products and verticals. The team maintains and develops a global distributed system that captures insights from human domain experts and analysts worldwide, operating at a scale that few companies can match. We leverage cutting-edge human-in-the-loop algorithms to create and curate datasets through fine-tuned multi-step annotation workflows and near real-time data quality feedback signals. You’ll tackle complex challenges in ML data quality at unprecedented scale while collaborating closely with AIML engineering teams across the company. From Siri to the Photos app, from iPhone to Vision Pro, you’ll help bring innovative experiences to millions of users worldwide. Description The AIML Annotation Platform provides frameworks and services for effective, privacy-focused data annotation across all of Apple. As a member of our backend engineering team, you'll have the opportunity to work with highly skilled engineers to build reliable backend systems, with a particular focus on the platform's quality stack: the services that score annotation work, compute quality metrics, and give our partners a trustworthy, end-to-end view of data quality. You will work most closely with our backend and quality engineers in Germany and partner regularly with our metrics team in the United States. Responsibilities Include Model great software engineering practices by producing well-tested, performant, and reliable code across the backend services we maintain. Push the boundary of world class quality control and assessment flows across mixed agentic and human annotation and evaluation pipelines, designing the systems that orchestrate, score, and verify work as it moves between automated agents and people. Design, build, and evolve the backend of our quality and scoring systems: measuring the quality of annotation and review work, computing and serving metrics, and making quality signals actionable for our users. Engage deeply in architecture and code reviews, pair programming, and design discussions, and write clear architecture and design proposals. Work across team and organizational boundaries so our tools and systems integrate seamlessly, and cooperatively solve complex problems with your peers. Constantly seek areas of improvement and help the team deepen and broaden its expertise. Your contributions will directly impact the foundation of Apple's AI and machine learning capabilities, ensuring that models across the entire product ecosystem are trained on the highest quality data possible. Responsibilities Develop and maintain backend services for annotation and evaluation quality measurement and monitoring systemsDesign and implement algorithms to assess quality across diverse datasets, spanning both foundational-model driven and traditional approachesBuild and advance complex quality control and assessment flows across mixed agentic and human annotation and evaluation pipelinesCreate automated quality feedback mechanisms that provide real-time insights to annotation and evaluation teamsResearch and prototype new approaches for improving annotation consistency, accuracy, and reliabilityOptimize and design efficient data pipelines for dataset and annotation quality metrics collection Minimum Qualifications PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Math, Physics or related field, or equivalent work experienceProven experience of backend engineering experience with cloud-based servicesProficiency in Python and Golang for backend developmentExperience with AWS services including Lambda and RDS/Aurora Preferred Qualifications Strong foundation in applied statistics and machine learning fundamentalsProven experience in data annotation, data quality, or related ML value chain rolesExperience building and scaling web-based platforms for machine learning workflowsAdvanced knowledge of statistical methods for data quality assessmentExperience with distributed systems and microservices architectureBackground in annotation workflow optimizationTrack record of research publications or patents in data quality or machine learningExperience working in cross-functional teams with both technical and non-technical stakeholders At Apple, we're not all the same. And that's our greatest strength. We draw on the differences in who we are, what we've experienced, and how we think. Because to create products that serve everyone, we believe in including everyone. Therefore, we are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally. We will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations. At Apple, we believe accessibility is a fundamental human right. You’ll find that idea reflected in everything here — in our culture, our benefits and our digital tools. By welcoming as many perspectives as possible, we help you build a career where you feel like you belong. Learn about accessibility in Apple’s workplace Role Number: 200678408-1337