Lead Engineer (traffic) - Apple Maps

Lead Engineer (Traffic) - Apple Maps

When will rush hour start tomorrow? How long will it take for a traffic jam to clear? How is a road closure impacting millions of drivers right now? At Apple Maps, our Traffic Team is dedicated to answering these questions at a global scale—powering accurate, responsive navigation experiences for millions of users every day. We're seeking a Technical Engineering Manager to lead a small, cross-functional team behind Apple Maps' real-time traffic systems. In this role you'll be hands-on—writing production-grade code, reviewing your teammates' work, and co-designing solutions that guide millions of drivers safely to their destination. You'll own the end-to-end lifecycle of traffic services, from architecture to incident response, and work closely with product teams to shape the future of Navigation. If you thrive on coaching engineers, solving complex data challenges, and building robust production services, we'd love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Guide technical decisions, shape system architecture, and ensure high-quality engineering execution to support scale, resilience, and performance.
• Contribute technically by actively coding, reviewing, and architecting core traffic services, while empowering your team to lead and take ownership.
• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of experienced engineers across Zurich and Cupertino.
• Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, inclusivity, trust, and open communication.
• Collaborate closely with product, data science, and infrastructure partners to define roadmaps and deliver impactful features.
• Lead operational excellence, including on-call rotations and incident response for critical services.
• Leverage your domain knowledge in traffic or mobility to make thoughtful decisions about tradeoffs, priorities, and emerging opportunities.

Minimum Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
• Strong experience in software development, preferably in backend or data-intensive systems and experience leading engineers (manager or tech lead role)
• Strong foundation in algorithms, distributed systems, and data processing at scale
• Availability to work overlapping hours with the Cupertino office (late Zürich time) to support cross-border collaboration

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in traffic, navigation, or geospatial systems
• Proven ability to define and deliver technical strategies aligned with product goals
• Strong cross-functional collaborator with data scientists, researchers, and product managers
• Effective communicator with the ability to influence across technical and product domains
• Proficiency in a typed language such as Java, Scala, or C++
• Familiarity with scalable data architectures (e.g., Spark, Flink, Kafka) and cloud-native infrastructure (e.g., Kubernetes)
• Experience with Machine Learning a plus

At Apple, we're not all the same. And that's our greatest strength. We draw on the differences in who we are, what we've experienced, and how we think. Because to create products that serve everyone, we believe in including everyone. Therefore, we are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally. We will work with applicants to make any reasonable accommodations.