Senior Software Engineer - AI, Search u0026 Knowledge Platform - Traffic Infrastructure

Are you an expert in large-scale networking and traffic infrastructure with a passion for building next-generation platforms for machine learning systems? We're seeking a hands-on technical leader with deep expertise in Envoy, Istio service mesh, L4/L7 load balancing, and modern internet protocols (HTTP/2, gRPC, HTTP/3) to design and scale traffic platforms that power Apple's Search and ML ecosystems. If you've contributed to CNCF or networking projects such as Envoy, Istio, Kubernetes networking, or related data-plane technologies, and you're excited about building capacity-aware, metrics-driven traffic systems for ML inference and training, this role offers the opportunity to architect at Apple scale-delivering highly performant, resilient, and intelligent traffic infrastructure supporting billions of requests.The AI, Search u0026 Knowledge Platform - Traffic Infrastructure Team within Apple's Services organization builds the foundational networking and traffic management platforms that power Search and large-scale ML workloads. Our focus is on designing modern L4/L7 traffic systems that intelligently route, balance, and optimize requests across heterogeneous compute environments-including GPU-backed inference services and multi-cloud deployments. We are reimagining traffic infrastructure as a programmable, metrics-driven, and capacity-aware platform, leveraging Envoy-based data planes, Istio service mesh, and dynamic control planes to support low-latency, high-throughput ML workloads. You'll work closely with ML engineers, SREs, and platform teams to enable secure, observable, and adaptive request routing for both server-to-server and client-to-server use cases.9+ years in networking, traffic infrastructure, or large-scale distributed systems roles. Contributions to CNCF or networking open-source projects (Envoy, Istio, Kubernetes networking, eBPF, etc.). Experience with HTTP/3, QUIC, or next-generation transport protocols. Strong understanding of capacity-based routing, adaptive load balancing, and feedback-driven traffic systems. Experience supporting ML inference platforms, GPU-backed services, or latency-sensitive ML workloads. Familiarity with observability stacks (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana) for traffic and networking telemetry. Experience operating traffic systems across multi-region, multi-cloud, or hybrid environments. Excellent communication, technical writing, and cross-functional leadership skills. B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.BS/MS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience. 5+ years of experience in distributed systems, networking, or traffic infrastructure engineering. Strong programming experience in Golang and Python, especially for control-plane or data-plane systems. Deep expertise in L4/L7 networking concepts, including load balancing, connection management, retries, timeouts, and congestion control. Hands-on experience with Envoy, Istio, or similar service mesh / proxy technologies. Strong understanding of HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, gRPC, and modern transport protocols. Experience designing and operating high-throughput, low-latency systems in production. Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and mentor engineers.