Localization Lead Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

The International Intelligence Engineering team powers the tooling, features and processes used to create an exceptional international experience across Apple's intelligence features for 100s of millions of our global customers and devices.
We are looking for an experienced, motivated, technical and passionate international ML engineering leader who will drive, coordinate and deliver the next generation of end-user intelligence features for international locales across multiple platforms (iOS, macOS, watchOS, etc).
This person will be a creative, motivated, technical leader with excellent communication skills who is passionate about Apple's products and the international customer experience. This person also has a robust understanding of large language models (LLMs), Internationalization and Apple software, Models and Frameworks.
Description
As an International Engineering Lead, you will join a phenomenal team of passionate engineers and project managers to engineer, implement and evaluate international features, processes and tooling across a wide variety of Apple's products.
We are looking for an exceptional candidate to help architect the future of international intelligence features. Your role is to focus on the bigger picture and ensure we build the best globally relevant features possible.
Your duties include:
- Collaborating with feature teams to own and drive the international customer experience for intelligence features
- Providing leadership to, and helping to direct the work of team members (Engineers, Project Managers, Language Experts, Quality Engineers, etc) who will work hand-in-hand with you to drive and deliver the international customer experience
- Regularly assessing feature internationalization readiness and progress
- Authoring weekly executive status, and representing international engineering in leadership meetings
- Reviewing and driving statistical eval result improvements across locales
- Advocating for the international customer and international ML best practices in recurring cross-functional and leadership meetings
- Regularly communicating with other International Engineering Leads and project managers to seek efficiencies, drive shared best practices, tooling and data, between intelligence features
- Building tools and prototypes to help drive Intelligence features forward at scale
- Working to improve evaluation process and tooling
- Leading the exploration and application of Large Language Models (LLMs) for performing localization and internationalization tasks and tooling, in service of a great customer experience.
- Actively engaging in all aspects of intelligence feature engineering, from ideation, prototyping, training, experimentation, statistical evaluation, functional on-device qualification, through shipping.
- Mentoring other engineers and colleagues
Minimum Qualifications
BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or Machine Learning (or equivalent experience)
Experience leading large cross-functional software engineering projects that have significant international impact
Experience with Machine Learning (ML), with a particular emphasis on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Proven ability to understand, interpret, and apply cutting-edge research to consumer-oriented products
Experience influencing cross-functional and cross-culturally partners at multiple levels of an organization, including senior leadership
Experience writing crisp and effective executive status updates
Proficiency using open-source ML toolkits and frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow)
Fluency in using Generative AI tools to multiply your impact, build prototypes, data pipelines, and to scale workflows
Strong programming skills in Python, Swift, C or C++
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with frequent context switching and changing priorities
Preferred Qualifications
Experience in software localization / internationalization
Experience adapting pre-trained LLMs for downstream tasks
Experience using GenAI to prototype solutions and data sets
Familiarity with localization standards and technologies (Unicode, XLIFF, ICU, etc.)
Fluent foreign language skills in reading, writing and speaking
Knowledge of Computational Linguistics
Experience using Xcode to build software for Apple's platforms
Proficiency with Apple's development APIs (SwiftUI, Foundation, etc.)
Deep understanding of languages and culture outside your own