Senior Data Scientist - Special Projects

Apple's intelligent systems generate rich, multi-modal data from devices, sensors, software, and services. We're looking for a data scientist who can bring clarity to this complexity - someone who can analyze diverse datasets, surface meaningful insights, and design intuitive tools that help teams understand and improve the intelligence behind Apple products.

You'll work across the full data lifecycle: discovering signals in large-scale distributed logs, building search and retrieval mechanisms to make data accessible, and crafting interactive visualizations and evaluations that guide product direction and system performance.

Description

Our team works at the intersection of hardware, software, and intelligence. We design the systems, infrastructure, and tools that enable Apple's next generation of AI-driven experiences - from on-device middleware and distributed inference platforms to large-scale data pipelines, interactive analytics, and advanced developer tooling. We collaborate closely with hardware, robotics, ML, design, and platform teams to build end-to-end solutions that are performant, intuitive, and deeply integrated into Apple's ecosystem. The work is hands-on, highly cross-disciplinary, and central to shaping how Apple's intelligent systems evolve.

Responsibilities:

Explore, analyze, and model large volumes of multi-modal data from devices and cloud systems to identify trends, correlations, and anomalies

Design and build interactive dashboards, visualizations, and metrics that help engineering and product teams evaluate system behavior

Develop search, retrieval, and indexing strategies to make data more discoverable, usable, and actionable across teams

Partner with AI and robotics engineers to design evaluation frameworks, KPIs, and diagnostics that assess data quality, model behavior, and system performance

Work with cloud engineers to shape how data is organized, stored, and exposed for efficient querying

Investigate data quality issues, define validation strategies, and recommend improvements to data collection and pipeline design

Collaborate with hardware, robotics, AI, and user experience teams to interpret data within the broader system context

Communicate insights clearly through written analyses, visual storytelling, and presentations to stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

Experience working with data from distributed or real-time systems, robotics, or multi-modal AI

Familiarity with information retrieval techniques (ranking, embedding-based search, relevance modeling)

Experience collaborating with ML teams on evaluation methodologies, dataset design, or model diagnostics

Knowledge of metadata management systems, cataloging approaches, or data documentation strategies

Background in statistical modeling, time-series analysis, or anomaly detection

Experience with visualization frameworks used for large datasets

Understanding of cloud-scale data processing and distributed compute frameworks

Minimum Qualifications

Proven experience in data science, analytics engineering, or applied research roles

Strong proficiency in Python and common data analysis libraries

Expertise with data visualization tools or frameworks for building interactive dashboards

Experience querying and modeling data in SQL and NoSQL environments

Ability to analyze large-scale, high-dimensional, and multi-modal datasets

Familiarity with designing or using search and retrieval systems for large-scale data

Experience designing KPIs, evaluation metrics, or experiment analyses for complex systems

Strong statistical intuition and experience with exploratory data analysis and hypothesis testing

Ability to translate complex findings into clear, actionable insights for cross-functional teams

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or related field, and 5+ years of industry experience

Pay & Benefits

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 $144,600 and $263,800, 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.