Systems Engineer - Camera & Edit, Apple Reference Image

Summary

Help build the system that proves a photo is real.

Imagine a photo that carries cryptographic proof it came from an Apple device sensor and hasn’t been altered. We’re building that. This is one of Apple’s most ambitious security, cryptography, and imaging initiatives. The system reaches from the image sensor, through on-device capture and RAW pipelines, into Private Cloud Compute (PCC) for processing and signing. It ends in the viewing and sharing experiences on iOS and macOS. Newsrooms, wire services, and everyday users will rely on it.

We’re looking for a Systems Engineer to own key parts of the architecture and the integration across the stack. You’ll work across hardware security, cloud infrastructure, and application behavior. You’ll partner with the project DRI and own specific systems-level work streams. You’ll also help several teams stay aligned on a system that is secure, coherent, and shippable.

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 industry experience

Working knowledge of cryptographic signing and verification: certificates, secure boot, key management, and revocation

Comfort working closely with Security and Privacy teams

Ability to work with many stakeholder teams (hardware, platform software, cloud, privacy, legal, QA) on ambiguous, changing requirements, and to keep the DRI informed of key tradeoffs and risks

Strong communication skills. You can explain deep technical tradeoffs clearly to engineers and to non-engineers such as Legal, Marketing, and Support.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with image and media pipelines, including RAW processing, ISP behavior, and DNG, JPEG, and HEIF formats

Experience with distributed cloud infrastructure and confidential compute environments (PCC or similar)

Familiarity with trusted time stamping and its role in chain of custody for signed data

Hands-on experience with certificate issuance, validation, and revocation workflows

Experience shipping flagship security or trust features across multiple operating systems

Familiarity with international privacy and regulatory requirements that affect feature availability by region

Experience building or evolving third-party applications that use sensitive capabilities

Willingness to write code to fill gaps on the team

Comfort in a fast-moving, evolving system with real security stakes and public visibility, such as newsroom and wire-service use cases