Senior Software Engineer, Access/Car Keys Engineering

Austin, Texas, United States

• Category: Software Engineering

Description

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At Apple, extraordinary ideas quickly become extraordinary products and experiences. The Access Engineering & Wallet Services team is redefining what digital access means, from unlocking your car and front door to authenticating securely with just your iPhone or Apple Watch.   

We’re looking for a seasoned software engineer who thrives on sophisticated problem-solving, spirited technical debate, and turning ambitious ideas into reality at global scale. If you’re motivated by product excellence, not just clean code — and if you bring both resilience and creativity to navigating a deeply cross-functional environment — we’d love to hear from you.

Description

You’ll be joining a team that values clarity, courage, and craft — where engineers have a voice, debates are healthy, and great ideas win. The Access / Car Keys Engineering team designs and builds the systems that make seamless, secure access possible. This role offers significant ownership, ideal for engineers ready to shape architecture and influence direction across multiple teams. Whether your background is in a large-scale distributed environment or a fast-moving startup, you bring strong technical intuition and a desire to build systems that last.

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture and development of distributed backend systems powering Apple Wallet’s digital access and Car Key experiences.

Build secure, performant APIs that integrate with partner ecosystems

Collaborate closely with hardware, security, and product teams to build deeply integrated, privacy-preserving user experiences.

Apply AI to improve efficiency, reliability, intelligence, and personalization in our product

Mentor and guide other engineers, encouraging a culture of technical rigor, open dialogue, and thoughtful innovation.

Minimum Qualifications

8+ years of backend software engineering experience in languages such as Java, Kotlin, or Go

Proven track record to deliver results in large, matrixed organizations—navigating ambiguity, aligning diverse stakeholders, and driving transparency through data and empathy.

Familiarity with leveraging AI to accelerate development

Proven success building scalable, reliable, and secure distributed systems and APIs

Strong foundation in concurrency, asynchronous processing, and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka)

Experience with Relational and NoSQL databases

Familiarity with DevOps, CI/CD, and production service ownership

BS in Computer Science or equivalent technical field

Preferred Qualifications

Experience developing or integrating AI/ML-driven systems or decision pipelines

Experience with iOS development or Apple platform integration

Ability to thrive in a matrixed, cross-functional environment and influence without direct authority

Exceptional interpersonal skills — comfortable leading design discussions, challenging ideas constructively, and driving alignment

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.

Learn about accessibility in Apple’s workplace

Learn about reasonable accommodations for job applicants

Company

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Apple

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.