Sr. Software Engineer, Infrastructure Services (Control Plane)

We are looking for passionate engineers who love building super-scalable, reliable, and user-friendly systems to support one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructures. In this role, you will design, build, and operate the distributed control plane and orchestration systems that manage virtualized networks, compute, and storage at planetary scale.

If you thrive on solving complex distributed consensus problems, architecting scalable microservices from scratch, and automating network fabrics at scale, we’d love to talk to you.

Responsibilities

Distributed Control Plane Architecture: Design, build, and scale resilient control plane software, SDN controllers, and orchestration services managing thousands of network elements.

API & System Design: Architect robust, low-latency APIs (REST, gRPC) and state-synchronization pipelines between centralized control planes and distributed network endpoints.

Protocol & Topology Management: Develop modules for routing control, topology discovery, configuration generation, policy enforcement, and fabric automation.

Operational Excellence & Reliability: Drive fleet-wide resilience by triaging complex distributed system failures, analyzing production metrics and logs, and driving root-cause remediation.

High-Quality Software Delivery: Write clean, modular, and well-tested code in Go, Java, or C++, maintaining rigorous CI/CD standards and automated validation.

Strong proficiency in Go, Java, or C++, along with experience in scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash).

Strong foundation in Computer Science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, multithreading, and distributed system design.

Solid understanding of Networking Fundamentals: TCP/IP, L2/L3 routing and switching concepts, BGP, overlay networks, and network virtualization.

Proficiency with Git, modern build systems, and configuration management infrastructure.

Experience designing, developing, and operating scalable distributed systems, microservices, and high-throughput APIs (REST, gRPC, Protobuf).

Understanding of distributed system challenges: state consensus, eventual consistency, partition tolerance, caching, and database design.

Demonstrated ability to prioritize, troubleshoot, and resolve critical production issues in large-scale distributed environments.

Strong organizational and interpersonal skills to articulate architectural decisions, balance trade-offs, and hit bold milestone targets.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience building SDN controllers, network operating systems (e.g., SONiC, OpenConfig, YANG), or orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes controllers/operators).

Hands-on experience with distributed data stores (e.g., etcd, Raft, ZooKeeper, Redis, Cassandra).

Experience with automated network provisioning, zero-touch provisioning (ZTP), and large-scale fleet telemetry.

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $184,700 and $324,800, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You’ll also receive benefits including: Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses - including tuition. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation. Learn more about Apple Benefits

Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

Do you want to help build some of the largest and most consequential enterprise and customer technology systems in the world? Join Apple’s Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) organization.

IS&T is the engine behind everything Apple does for customers and for the people who build for them. It’s Apple’s central nervous system. Supporting 2.5 billion active Apple devices, processing billions of secure transactions, and keeping the technology that defines modern life running flawlessly, IS&T makes the impossible feel effortless.”

Do you love building solutions to handle global complexity and immense scale? Imagine what you could do here.

Infrastructure Services is part of IS&T and the foundation of Apple’s global network operations - managing data center equipment and systems to deliver compute, storage, and networking services for teams across Apple, including its internal developer community. From individual facilities to a worldwide network, Infrastructure Services ensures the technology underneath everything works without question