Software Middleware Team Lead - Q

Summary
Our team is new, growing, and evolving quickly, and we are hiring across multiple disciplines. We work at the intersection of machine learning, hardware, and software, creating technologies that reshape how people communicate and experience the world around them in everyday life.

Description
Somewhere between the physics of a sensor and the software people touch, there is a layer that decides whether a breakthrough actually works. You’ll lead the team that builds it.

We’re a small, truly multidisciplinary team that spans high-level software down to low-level physics, and we’re building the foundation for Apple’s next big AI technology. As Team Lead, you’ll drive the iOS- and macOS-based, low-latency application layer of our data collection and research system. It is the infrastructure that turns raw, real-world signals into the data that trains and validates the next line of Apple AI products. This is a player-coach role: you’ll keep writing and reviewing code while you set technical direction, build the team, and hold a high bar for quality.

It’s a rare opportunity to shape a team, a technology, and a product line at the very beginning.

Responsibilities

• Help create the next line of Apple AI products by leading the build of the infrastructure and groundwork they will stand on
• Lead the architecture and delivery of the low-latency middleware layer behind our iOS and macOS data collection and research applications
• Stay hands-on: write code, review pull requests, and debug the hard problems alongside the team. This is not a purely managerial role
• Set technical direction and coding standards across C++, Objective-C/C++, Swift, and Python
• Own the roadmap with research, firmware, silicon, and product partners, and turn ambiguous, ambitious goals into a concrete technical plan
• Drive design and implementation decisions for the applications on top of the middleware, not just the layer underneath
• Mentor and grow a team of strong engineers, and run the design and code reviews that set the culture
• Bring AI-assisted development into the team’s daily workflow and show how much a small team can ship
• Work across the whole stack, from high-level software to low-level physics, and connect the disciplines that make it work
  
  

• B.Sc. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Engineering
• 5+ years of hands-on software development experience, including 5+ years of leading engineering teams
• Solid working experience in Python and in at least one of C++, Objective-C/C++, or Swift
• Comfort working across platforms and environments — shared code, build, and deployment
• Vast programming knowledge and background — able to credibly review and guide work across multiple languages and layers of the stack
• Proven capability delivering low-latency, production-grade systems, ideally in data collection, instrumentation, or research-tooling contexts
• Demonstrated, hands-on fluency with advanced AI coding tools, with the judgment to apply them effectively across a team’s workflow
• Track record of technical leadership: architectural decision-making, mentoring, and balancing hands-on contribution with team enablement
• Excellent communication skills — able to represent the team’s technical direction to stakeholders and translate business/research needs into engineering plans
  
  

• Professional experience in all of the core languages: Python, C++, Objective-C/C++, and Swift
• macOS and/or iOS development experience — a rare and highly valued profile for this team
• Familiarity with sensor capture (video, audio) and multi-stream synchronization
• Familiarity with machine learning and inference (on-device or pipeline integration)
• Prior experience as a team lead or staff-level IC in a similarly scoped org
• Experience with pre-silicon or hardware-adjacent software development
• Background building integration/test vehicles or data-collection platforms