OS Performance Engineer, CoreOS
Apple
Cupertino, CA, USA
USD 147,400-272,100 / year + Equity
Posted on Mar 28, 2026
The OS Performance team at Apple is seeking an exceptional Systems Engineer to drive performance excellence across Apple's software and hardware ecosystem. This role involves working across the full software stack—from high-level applications and frameworks to low-level kernel components—ensuring that Apple delivers world-class performance on supported products. The position presents diverse challenges spanning from optimizing performance on currently supported hardware to unleashing the full potential of cutting-edge next-generation products. As a Systems Engineer on this team, you will have the opportunity to make a direct impact on the user experience for millions of customers worldwide by ensuring every device, regardless of generation, delivers the smooth, responsive experience Apple customers expect.
In this role, you will dive deep into performance issues surfaced across Apple's ecosystem and will be working with cross-functional partner teams from various apps and frameworks to decipher complex system conditions that impact performance and develop solutions to resolve them. You'll have the opportunity to drive innovative performance optimization ideas from conception to delivery, develop measurement tools and analysis frameworks, and create testing methodologies that reflect real-world usage. The ideal candidate will be someone who is self-motivated and enjoys debugging complex systems, with a natural curiosity for understanding how different components interact and impact overall performance.
- Analyze and fix challenging performance problems in software for various user facing workloads in order to provide the best-in-class experience on Apple products.
- Engage with other engineering teams from firmware, kernel, applications and hardware teams to gain a deep understanding of problem domains through technical discussions and strong collaboration.
- Propose architectural changes, optimizations and offer solutions to end to end responsiveness issues.
- Develop and use tools to profile and analyze performance issues across the software stack for user facing scenarios.
- Develop and analyze telemetry to understand performance trends from the field across products and software releases.
- Evaluate and optimize performance of new products and features in software for a great user experience.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, related technical field or equivalent professional experience
- Strong understanding of OS fundamentals
- Proficiency in C/C++ or other System programming language
- Experience in Systems Engineering
- Ability to collaborate across teams to drive development and performance optimizations
- Strong understanding of computer architecture, compilers and low-level programming languages
- Experience with kernel development
- Experience in performance analysis, optimization, and debugging
- Experience with performance profiling tools and methodologies
- Excellent communication, teamwork and organizational skills
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.