Senior Software Engineer, Photos UI

Summary

Apple is a place where you can build incredible products that affect the whole world. Its a place where every detail matters, where we obsess about the experience, and where everything is about surprising and delighting the customer.

The Photos app is one of these iconic Apple experiences. Join the Photos UI team — the group that builds all the experiences for Photos, across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The Cambridge Photos UI team’s focus is crafting deeply personal relive experiences, like Creation of Memories, Featured Photos, and the Photos Widget. We leverage cutting-edge AI to help users rediscover and enjoy their most precious moments, and are pioneering new frontiers in Apple Intelligence.

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer who can lead rapid prototyping and architecture for the next generation of Photos + AI features. You will play a pivotal role in the team, at the intersection of UI exploration, design with AI, and large scale photo libraries.

Description

In this influential role, you will be instrumental in leading the design, prototyping, and development of innovative user interfaces and experiences for the Photos app and related media-centric features. You will spearhead the creation of novel AI-driven experiences, leveraging Apple Intelligence models to build intuitive, engaging, and visually stunning interactions. Your responsibilities will include architecting robust and scalable solutions, collaborating closely with design, AI/ML specialists, research scientists, and other engineering teams to translate ambitious concepts into polished, shippable features.

You will work across the full product cycle, from ideation and rapid prototyping, often using SwiftUI, to delivering high-performance, high-quality code for features that reach hundreds of millions of users. We are seeking a seasoned engineer passionate about building beautiful UIs, exploring innovative AI applications, and pushing the boundaries of how technology can enhance emotional connection and user delight with their photo and video libraries. You will mentor junior engineers, drive technical decisions, and contribute to the team's strategic direction.

Minimum Qualifications

• Proven experience architecting and delivering complex, user-facing applications with a strong focus on the user interface.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate machine learning models or AI-driven logic into polished, consumer-facing product features.
• Experience leading the technical design and architecture of new features, from concept and prototyping through to release.
• A strong foundation in software engineering principles, including data structures, software architecture, and a proven ability to solve complex problems within a cross-functional team.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise with modern, declarative UI frameworks (e.g., SwiftUI) to build sophisticated and performant interfaces.
• Experience with media or graphics-rendering pipelines and frameworks (e.g., AVKit, Core Animation, Metal).
• A track record of analyzing and optimizing application performance, particularly for media-heavy or computationally intensive features.
• Demonstrated success in mentoring and providing technical guidance to other engineers.
• A history of shipping and iterating on multiple high-impact, consumer-facing applications at a large scale.
• A strong passion for photography, visual storytelling, and crafting emotionally resonant digital products.
  
  

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. As a registered Disability Confident employer, we will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations. Apple will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal backgrounds in a manner consistent with applicable law. Learn more