Staff Tools Engineer - Intelligent Productivity and Automation - Ads Platform

We support ads and sponsorships across Apple Services, including the App Store, Apple News, MLS Season Pass and now F1 ! . Everything we do is designed for trust, connection, and impact: We respect user privacy, integrate advertising thoughtfully into the experience, and deliver value for advertisers of all sizes—from small app developers to news publishers to big, global brands. Because when advertising is done right, it benefits everyone.

We are seeking a Senior Tools Engineer to help build intelligent internal platforms, automation frameworks, and developer tools that improve quality, and engineering productivity across Apple Ads.

This is a hands-on engineering role focused on building AI/LLM-powered internal tooling and automation systems across mobile, backend, API, and data platform ecosystems. The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering fundamentals with experience building scalable automation, developer infrastructure, and full-stack engineering platforms.

In this role, you will help build AI/LLM-powered internal tools that help to continuously understand signals across products, detecting risk patterns early, and enabling autonomous validation and recovery workflows. You will work on unifying fragmented solutions across multiple Apple Ads business lines into a single intelligence layer integrated with a unified validation platform, replacing bespoke tooling with a scalable and adaptive ecosystem accessible through prompts, APIs, and MCP servers. This role is focused on leveraging existing AI models and platforms to build intelligent internal developer tools rather than developing or training AI/ML models. We are looking for candidates who can operate effectively in ambiguous environments, drive clarity across complex problem spaces, and influence cross-functional teams through strong technical leadership and excellent communication skills, including experience partnering with senior engineers and engineering leadership.

Minimum Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science or related field.
• 10+ years of experience building scalable test automation frameworks and leading QE strategy across complex distributed systems spanning web, mobile, APIs, and data platforms
• Strong programming expertise in Python or Java, with deep experience in modern automation frameworks such as Playwright or Selenium, mobile testing ecosystems including iOS/XCTest/XCUITest, and distributed systems such as Hadoop, Hive, and HDFS
• Proven ability to drive adoption of emerging technologies such as AI/LLMs, MCP, and agentic systems to enable intelligent automation and self-serve developer workflows
• Expertise in debugging complex system-level issues, validating APIs and data pipelines, and driving root cause analysis across integrated services and platforms
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering standards, operate effectively in ambiguous environments, and collaborate with senior engineers and engineering leadership across cross-functional teams

Preferred Qualifications

• MS preferred
• Experience designing AI driven or agent based automation systems, including MCP aligned architectures
• Experience building scalable validation strategies for data platforms, including streaming systems (Kafka, Spark)
• Strong background in API testing, data validation, and building self service QE platforms
• Experience in advertising technology or similar large scale, high complexity ecosystems
• Proven track record of leading cross org initiatives and driving alignment across multiple teams