Machine Learning Engineering Manager - Ads Recommendations

At Apple, we strive every day to create products that enrich people’s lives. Our Advertising Platforms group enables users worldwide to discover new content seamlessly while empowering publishers and developers to promote and monetize their work. Our technology powers advertising in the App Store and Apple News, delivering highly-performant, privacy-first solutions that set new industry standards. We're seeking a dynamic and strategic engineering manager to drive innovation in Ads Recommendations. This role requires a deep understanding of Ad network behavior and the ability to develop and prioritize an innovation roadmap that spans multiple technical domains. You'll lead a team that designs, develops, and delivers innovative capabilities, differentiating Apple Ads and driving key business outcomes.

As a Machine Learning Engineering Manager / Tech Lead Manager, you'll be responsible for building the next generation advertiser recommendation engine to enable advertisers to optimize for their campaign performance goals on Apple Ads. You will work with a variety of cross functional business partners to set strategy and bring end-to-end solutions that scale as we grow. In addition, you will have the opportunity to play a critical role in influencing the roadmap and technical strategy in allied areas like campaign optimization, auction optimization, etc., all of which are critical for delivering an enhanced experience for advertisers on our platform.

• Define and implement the technical strategy for building the next generation recommendation engine to help advertisers optimize for their campaign performance goals.
• Leverage innovative research and technology including the latest GenAI and agentic approaches to deliver these capabilities at scale.
• Play a critical role in shaping the strategy and roadmap for allied areas like campaign optimization, auction optimization, etc., to deliver an optimal end-to-end experience for advertisers.
• Design and analyze sophisticated algorithms to deliver incremental improvements that are privacy compliant.
• Execute and analyze A/B tests and pilots to drive continuous improvements in advertiser-facing applications.
• Work closely with engineering and business teams to scale innovations, improving advertiser experience and monetization potential across Apple Ads.
• Operate at utmost scale, ensuring efficient and reliable model deployment and execution.
• Architect and scale intelligence systems, addressing operational concerns and performance optimizations.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a talented team of engineers, setting technical direction and execution cadence.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in machine learning, statistics, and quantitative optimization, with at least 2-3 years as a tech lead or at least 1 year as an engineering manager.
• Track record of leading machine learning engineering teams from design to implementation, ensuring scalability and reliability.
• Deep understanding of modern machine learning techniques, statistics, and quantitative optimization.
• Experience working with operational teams on deployment, monitoring, and system management.
• Experience running A/B tests and pilots for sales / advertiser-facing applications.
• Experience building GenAI and agentic systems.
• Hands-on experience with Python or Java in a production environment.
• Proficiency in databases, SQL, and scripting languages for data processing and model deployment.
• BS, or equivalent experience, in AI, ML, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience leading teams that apply advanced statistical/ML methods.
• Previous experience in the online advertising domain is a big plus.
• MS/PhD, or equivalent experience, in AI, ML, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field.