Senior Agent Evaluation Engineer, AI Evaluation Platform

Summary

Join Apple Services Engineering to define how we measure whether AI agents actually work. We are seeking a senior engineer who has built agents and knows how to evaluate them rigorously. You will design evaluation suites, build and validate judges, and ship agents on our evaluation platform, so the platform is shaped by real use and not guesswork. You will partner with researchers, product teams, and platform engineers to turn evaluation methodology into tools other teams can adopt. We are looking for builders who move quickly, iterate in the open, and can tell a trustworthy evaluation from a theatrical one.

Description

We're building the evaluation platform that will serve all of Apple's generative AI and agent systems. Building agents got faster. Knowing whether they got better did not. This role closes that gap. You'll build real agents and evaluate them: multi-turn trajectories, tool-use chains, non-deterministic outputs, and judge reliability. You'll write evaluation suites, validate judges against human labels, and measure variance across trials. Some agents you build will evaluate other systems (test-case generation, judging, failure triage). Others will be reference agents or built with partner teams. When the platform gets in your way, you'll file the gap, and often fix it yourself. This is a hands-on role with a lot of autonomy. You'll work in Python with a team of 7-12 engineers.

Minimum Qualifications

• 4-8 years of software engineering experience shipping production software.
• Hands-on agent builder. You've built LLM agents beyond demos: tool use, MCP, multi-step workflows, context management, error recovery.
• Evaluation depth. You've designed evaluations for agents, not just models. You understand non-deterministic outputs, multi-trial measurement (pass@k, variance), trajectory scoring, and scoring drift. You've worked with tools like Inspect, Braintrust, LangSmith, or Promptfoo, or built your own.
• Judge rigor. You know how to build an LLM judge, validate it against human agreement, and know when not to trust it.
• Fast from idea to prototype. You can point to things you built quickly, then iterated on or shipped. You can also tell us about a prototype you killed, and why.
• Fluent with AI coding tools. You use Claude Code or equivalents daily, including skills, slash commands, and agent-style workflows.
• Python as primary language. Strong with FastAPI, Pydantic, and the ecosystem. Your code is clean, tested, and easy for the next person to pick up.
• Judgment on speed vs. discipline. You know when a quick prototype is enough and when you need a design doc, tests, and a careful rollout.
• Cross-team collaboration. You've worked closely with researchers, product teams, or platform engineers. You write clearly and flag blockers early.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working on developer platforms, internal tools, or SDKs
• Production experience with LLM/agent systems — building, evaluating, or operating them
• Familiarity with job orchestration frameworks (Temporal.io, Airflow, or similar)
• Distributed compute experience (Ray, Dask, or Kubernetes-based job systems)
• Experience with experiment tracking or ML lifecycle tooling (Weights & Biases, MLflow, etc.)
• Startup or early-stage experience where you wore multiple hats and shipped under constraint

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 $175,000 and $263,300, 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.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant

At Apple, we believe accessibility is a fundamental human right. You’ll find that idea reflected in everything here — in our culture, our benefits and our digital tools. By welcoming as many perspectives as possible, we help you build a career where you feel like you belong.

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Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.