Senior Applications Engineer - Data Layer
Apple
IT
Seattle, WA, USA
USD 171,600-302,200 / year + Equity
Posted on Mar 27, 2026
Join the Final Cut Pro engineering team — Apple's flagship professional video editing suite used by major Hollywood studios and millions of creators worldwide — and help shape the next generation of data infrastructure powering professional creative workflows. As a Senior Applications Engineer specializing in Data Infrastructure, you will bring deep expertise in database internals, on-device data systems, and high-performance computing to a team building the persistence and data layer foundations of Final Cut Pro — where managing complex object graphs, transactional integrity under real-time demands, and long-term architectural evolution are the everyday reality. You will contribute strong systems-level thinking and architectural depth while helping expand the team's collective knowledge in modern data patterns — including distributed systems concepts and microservices design — and how they can be thoughtfully applied to a demanding desktop application environment. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who thrives at the intersection of systems engineering and data architecture — excited to bring expertise from backend, infrastructure, or distributed systems domains into a performance-critical creative application where data integrity and responsiveness are non-negotiable. You will work with a high degree of autonomy alongside engineers who care deeply about craft and correctness.
Design and evolve Final Cut Pro's persistence layer, including schema design, query optimization, and data storage for multi-gigabyte project files requiring real-time responsiveness. Design and implement scalable data models that support complex media workflows, drawing on deep knowledge of database internals, indexing strategies, and I/O optimization. Participate in architectural discussions, code reviews, and engineering excellence initiatives — bringing distributed systems and modern database perspectives to broaden the team's technical toolkit.
- 7+ years of experience in applications, platform, or infrastructure engineering with a strong focus on data systems design and implementation.
- Deep expertise in database internals — query planning, indexing, transaction management, and schema migration strategies.
- Proficiency in Swift, C++, or Rust — with a strong emphasis on memory management, concurrency, and performance optimization.
- BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience, with demonstrated depth in systems programming, distributed computing, or database engineering.
- Hands-on experience with embedded or local database technologies such as SQLite, Realm, LevelDB, or similar — particularly in the context of client-side or on-device data management.
- Familiarity with distributed data patterns — including microservices architecture, CQRS, or CRDTs, and a genuine interest in exploring how these concepts could benefit on-device and desktop application data layers.
- Familiarity with Apple's development ecosystem (macOS, iOS, Xcode) or demonstrated ability to ramp quickly on a new platform environment.
- Experience working in large, complex codebases with incremental modernization goals and long-term architectural vision.
- Exposure to media, graphics, or creative software domains is a plus, but not required — curiosity and enthusiasm for the problem space matters more.
- Knowledge of data migration strategies and performance tuning for I/O-bound systems.
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