Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer – Ads Prediction, Signals & Quality

Apple Apple · Big Tech · Cupertino, CA · Software and Services

Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Apple Ads, focusing on innovation in ad prediction, quality, and privacy-preserving signals. The role involves building large-scale prediction models, designing privacy-respecting signals, and ensuring ad quality. It requires expertise in deep learning, prediction systems, and privacy-preserving ML, with a strong emphasis on production experience and technical leadership.

What you'd actually do

  1. Drive innovation in ad prediction, quality, and privacy-preserving signals.
  2. Set technical direction, lead complex initiatives, and mentor engineers.
  3. Collaborate closely with research, infrastructure, and product teams.
  4. Work with some of the best engineers and researchers in the field.
  5. Solve problems at massive scale, and deliver models that respect users while driving meaningful outcomes for advertisers.

Skills

Required

  • Machine Learning
  • Deep Learning
  • Prediction Systems
  • Python
  • Large-scale data pipelines
  • A/B testing
  • Production experimentation
  • Technical leadership
  • Cross-functional collaboration

Nice to have

  • Federated learning
  • Differential privacy
  • Homomorphic encryption
  • Secure multiparty computation
  • Scala
  • Java
  • C++
  • Information retrieval
  • Query-document matching
  • Embedding-based ranking
  • Learning-to-rank algorithms

What the JD emphasized

  • 10+ years of experience applying ML at scale in ads, recommender systems, content ranking, or related domains.
  • Strong expertise in deep learning architectures (Transformers, LLMs, DNNs) and training frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch).
  • Proven track record in prediction systems (CTR, CVR, or related) and explore/exploit strategies (bandits, RL).
  • Experience with privacy-preserving ML (federated learning, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, secure multiparty computation) is preferred.
  • Familiarity with large-scale data pipelines, A/B testing infrastructure, and production experimentation.
  • Strong coding skills in Python and production experience in at least one of: Scala, Java, C++.
  • Ability to set technical direction, influence cross-functional stakeholders, and deliver business impact.
  • Published research or open-source contributions in ads, ranking, privacy-preserving ML, or large-scale prediction systems.
  • Experience leading multi-team or cross-org initiatives with measurable business and user impact.
  • Deep expertise in signals engineering for ads quality, trust & safety, or search relevance.
  • Great foundation in information retrieval, including query-document matching, embedding-based ranking, and learning-to-rank algorithms is a plus

Other signals

  • building large-scale prediction models
  • designing signals that respect user privacy
  • ensuring ad quality
  • privacy-preserving ML
  • large-scale data pipelines
  • production experimentation