Lead Systems Integration Engineer - AirPods

At Apple, new ideas can quickly transform into amazing products, services, and customer experiences. Sound is an essential facet of that experience, and we are committed to making a difference through innovative electronic design. Our team owns the electronics inside small form-factor audio products — pushing the boundaries of physical architecture, wireless and silicon technologies.

The AirPods System Integration team turns these ambitions into shipping hardware. We are looking for a technical leader who holds the bar high — someone with a sharp eye for design detail, high standards for their own work, and the influence to bring the whole team up with them.

If you love building things, raising the quality of every design that ships, and working on products that millions of people wear every day, come help lead the next generation of AirPods!

Description

You will set the technical direction for system electrical engineering on an AirPods program — anchoring architecture decisions, raising the bar on how the team designs and validates hardware, and making sure the toughest calls get made with rigor. You will be a force multiplier for the engineers around you — unblocking, enabling, and elevating their work and a trusted voice across engineering, manufacturing, and leadership.

Responsibilities

Lead the electrical architecture of an AirPods program — anchoring partitioning, power, wireless, and silicon integration decisions from concept through mass production

Raise the technical bar through rigorous design and validation reviews, high personal standards, and by codifying best practices the team can reuse

Mentor and technically guide a team of EEs — unblock hard problems, grow depth across the group, and hold the design-review bar

Own the challenging technical calls end-to-end — drive cross-functional trade-offs across silicon, RF, power, audio, sensor, mechanical, software, and manufacturing to a durable outcome

Lead top-issue and failure-analysis reviews; drive root cause across silicon, RF, power, and mechanical domains, land fixes that hold up in high-volume production, and introduce processes and tools that outlive any single product

Drive the technical rhythm of the program — top issues, risk tracking, and weekly status and escalation to engineering leadership and executives

Represent the electrical system to silicon partners and contract manufacturers; build alignment on strategy, escalations, and hard calls

Travel occasionally including internationally — to support builds and manufacturing activities.

Minimum qualifications

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, or equivalent directly-related work experience

8+ years of relevant industry experience designing electronic and/or embedded systems

Deep electrical engineering fundamentals across analog, digital, power, and signal integrity, with a track record of leading complex system decisions to closure

Experience in shipping at least one high-volume consumer product end-to-end, from architecture through mass production, including working with contract manufacturers

Demonstrated hands-on lab and debug experience across the full product lifecycle

Preferred qualifications

Track record of shaping how a team operates — the tools, workflows, and frameworks that focus effort on what matters most and divide work efficiently across engineers

Ability to turn high-level direction into concrete plans and deliverables — and take other engineers along on that journey

Ability to evaluate emerging technologies — silicon roadmaps, wireless standards, sensing, materials — and assess how they will shape future generations of AirPods

Comfortable making measured decisions in ambiguity with incomplete data — and a track record of decisions that held up

Excellent communication and executive presence — the ability to explain complex electrical trade-offs to non-EE audiences and land decisions across engineering, operations, and leadership