Camera and Photos - Senior Cinematic Video Software Engineer
Apple
Software Engineering
Cupertino, CA, USA
USD 147,400-272,100 / year + Equity
Posted on Feb 19, 2026
iPhone is the most popular camera in the world, with billions of photos and videos captured annually. The tight integration of hardware and software has made it possible to create unparalleled computational video features like Cinematic mode, the technology that's putting professional filmmaking in everyone's pocket, from aspiring filmmakers to everyday users capturing precious moments. Join Cinematic Experiences, the team developing iPhone's groundbreaking Cinematic mode, and come shape the future of mobile cinematography! Transform how millions capture and create videos by advancing our real-time computational videography pipeline. Your work will build upon the machine learning and rendering pipelines that powers real-time automatic focus transitions and bokeh rendering, shipping on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide.
We are looking for a senior video processing software engineer to join our diverse and creative team that’s uniquely positioned between Camera, Photos, and third-party APIs, allowing us to shape both video capture and playback experiences. Our team is composed of seasoned camera systems, rendering, and computer vision engineers. We work on high-visibility features that often make it into Apple keynotes and WWDC. The ideal candidate has a proven track record of productizing cutting-edge video processing algorithms while having a strong optimization mindset and systems integration skills to bring those innovations to life on device. In this role, you will push the boundaries of what's possible on mobile platforms under tight compute and memory constraints by tackling complex problems including: natural bokeh rendering, edge preservation, and temporal consistency, real-time depth map generation and refinement, intelligent subject tracking and focus prediction, ultra-low latency pipeline optimizations.
- Drive the exploration and adoption of state-of-the-art video processing research, transforming research prototypes into robust, power-efficient, real-time product implementations.
- Integrate video processing pipelines into the broader iOS ecosystem, managing complex interactions across CPU, GPU, and Apple Neural Engine resources under strict thermal, latency, and memory budgets.
- Partner with cross-functional Hardware, Design, and Quality teams to define and deliver next-generation video features.
- 5+ years of relevant industry experience.
- Strong CPU programming skills in ObjC, C, or C++.
- Experience with GPGPU APIs such as Metal, CUDA, or Vulkan.
- Solid foundation in Camera systems, Video Processing, Computer Vision, 3D Graphics, Machine Learning, or relevant domains.
- Experience developing concurrent code on embedded platforms under heavy performance constraints.
- Demonstrable interest in keeping up with state-of-the-art research.
- Strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills.
- BS degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related major.
- 10+ years of industry experience.
- Experience with 3D GPU rendering
- Experience training or pipelining ML models on embedded systems.
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.