Systems Engineer — Apple Reference Image

Summary

Reference Image is one of Apple's most ambitious end-to-end security and imaging initiatives: a system that lets users cryptographically verify that a photo genuinely came from an Apple device sensor, unaltered. It spans everything from the image sensor, through on-device capture and RAW pipelines, to Private Cloud Compute (PCC) processing and signing, all the way to viewing and sharing experiences across iOS and macOS.

We're looking for a Systems Engineer to join the Reference Image team and own key pieces of the technical architecture and cross-stack integration, someone who can reason across hardware security, cloud infrastructure, and application-layer behavior. You'll work under the guidance of the project DRI, taking ownership of specific systems-level work streams while helping drive alignment across a distributed, multi-team effort toward a coherent, secure, and shippable system.

Description

In this role you’ll be expected to:

* Contribute to and help maintain the systems architecture for Reference Image, spanning sensor-level signing, on-device RAW capture pipelines, and cloud-based development in PCC.

* Contribute to the design and implementation of cryptographic key rotation, certificate lifecycle management, and revocation frameworks.

* Work closely with Security and Privacy teams to help threat-model end-to-end media authenticity workflows, evaluating cryptographic integrity, data privacy, and downstream non-destructive edit handling.

* Help evaluate and advance standard and extended image container formats to support secure provenance and authenticity metadata.

* Coordinate with PCC/Cloud infrastructure teams on specific integration points to ensure the signing and certificate infrastructure scales and meets the security bar.

* Represent your work stream's technical tradeoffs in cross-functional forums (Photos, Camera Capture, ISP/hardware, QA, Privacy, Legal, Marketing), proactively identifying and resolving cross-team technical dependencies and blockers.

* Contribute to scoping and planning for future hardware generations under the direction of the DRI.

Minimum Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field and 5+ years of experience in industry.
• Familiarity with cryptographic signing/verification concepts (certificates, secure boot, key management, revocation) and comfort partnering closely with Security/Privacy teams.
• Experience with image/media pipelines (RAW processing, ISP behavior, DNG/JPEG/HEIF formats) is a strong plus.
• Experience with distributed cloud infrastructure and confidential compute environments (PCC or similar) preferred.
• Ability to work effectively across many stakeholder teams (hardware, platform software, cloud, privacy, legal, QA) on ambiguous, evolving requirements, while keeping the project DRI informed of key tradeoffs and risks.
• Strong communicator who can translate deep technical tradeoffs into clear guidance for both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders (e.g., legal, marketing, support).

Preferred Qualifications

• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, still-evolving system with real security stakes and public-facing implications (e.g., newsroom/wire-service use cases).
• Capable of coding to fill functional gaps in the team.
• Familiarity with trusted time stamping mechanisms and their role in establishing chain-of-custody for signed data.
• Experience working on flagship security or trust features that ship across multiple operating systems.
• Familiarity with international privacy/regulatory considerations affecting feature availability by region.
• Experience standing up or evolving 3rd-party applications involving sensitive capabilities.
• Familiarity with certificate management practices, including issuance, validation, and revocation workflows.