Engineering Manager, CloudKit Infrastructure - iCloud

Summary

We are looking for an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead a team responsible for the systems that enable our cloud infrastructure to operate at scale with exceptional reliability, integrity, security, and efficiency. This is a technically grounded role, ideal for leaders passionate about distributed databases, storage systems, and building large-scale, resilient infrastructure.

You will be working on CloudKit, Apple’s foundational, privacy-focused database platform, which stores and syncs user data across all their Apple devices. It is the foundation of Apple’s signature cloud services, such as Photos, Drive, Backup, Notes, Mail, News, and many third-party applications.

CloudKit manages data at a truly massive scale! It is a strongly consistent database of structured data that serves billions of active Apple customers. It is purposely built to be performant, highly available, and extremely scalable, with privacy at its core. CloudKit empowers developers to build highly collaborative and secure applications.

About the role

As an engineering manager in CloudKit, you will own the vision and roadmap for a core component of the CloudKit platform, guiding foundational technologies that ensure data consistency, recovery, and self-healing.

You will lead a team that manages a wide surface area of projects by overseeing execution, facilitating technical decisions, guiding architectural directions, scaling operational practices, and developing the next generation of engineering leaders within iCloud.

Responsibilities

• Technical Excellence: Guide complex architectural decisions and contribute to hands-on development to maintain CloudKit’s reputation for data availability and scalability.
• Engineering Culture: Oversee development velocity, code quality, testing practices, and release processes to ensure consistent delivery of high-quality software.
• Operational Oversight: Support the availability, durability, and performance of production systems operating at scale.
• Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the technical and infrastructure roadmap for CloudKit in collaboration with key partners.
• Team Management: Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing engineering team focused on distributed databases, job frameworks, and cloud-native infrastructure.
• Collaboration: Partner with cross-functional teams, including site reliability engineering (SRE) and solutions engineering to ensure efficient and seamless integration of data-critical subsystems.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of proven experience in software engineering with 3+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Experience building and operating large-scale, multi-tenant distributed systems.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex priorities in a fast-paced collaborative environment.
• Passion for building strong engineering cultures rooted in transparency, mentorship, and technical rigor.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work across organizational boundaries.
• Experience operating in large, complex organizations with high standards for quality and reliability.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or an equivalent discipline.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong background in Java, C, C++, and programming in concurrent / multi-threaded environments.
• Strong background in NoSQL and key-value (KV) database technologies, e.g., FoundationDB, DynamoDB, or Cassandra.
• Expertise in synchronous and asynchronous network application I/O frameworks, e.g., Netty and gRPC.
• Strong fundamentals in relational storage systems, e.g., schema design, indexes, and transactions.
• Familiarity with orchestration and durable scheduling frameworks, e.g., Temporal.
• Familiarity with event streaming and queueing systems, e.g., Kafka.
• Experience using AWS, GCP, and cloud-native technologies, e.g., Docker and Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with identity, authentication, and authorization systems at scale.