Architect, Perimeter and Network Security, Enterprise Technology Services

About the role

The Emerging Technologies team is seeking an industry-recognized Architect to serve as the domain expert for Apple's perimeter and network security platform. You will be the technical authority across the full traffic path - edge proxies, origin/application load balancers, service mesh, and API & AI security gateways - architecting the defenses that protect Apple's services at scale. We are looking for someone who brings deep, proven expertise in perimeter security, threat mitigation, and proxy technologies - a technical leader whose experience and reputation precede them. In this role, you will own the architecture and technical direction of the systems that deliver Apple's security capabilities - WAF protection against OWASP threats, DDoS mitigation, Bot Prevention, TLS termination/origination, real-time threat intelligence, and security policy enforcement across protocols (TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS). These capabilities are powered by L4/L7 proxy runtimes and a Java-based orchestration platform that manages configuration, policy distribution, and lifecycle management at fleet scale. You will define the long-term security architecture vision, drive technically complex initiatives end-to-end, and shape how these systems evolve across on-premises data centers and public cloud environments (GCP, AWS), ensuring Apple's defenses remain resilient, adaptive, and secure as threats and scale grow. This is a deeply technical, hands-on role for a recognized industry expert. You are expected to write code, prototype solutions, lead design efforts, and raise the technical bar for the entire team - not through management authority, but through expertise, influence, and the quality of your work. This role is also deeply cross-functional - you will partner with Apple's security and cloud infrastructure teams to drive a unified security vision, and work directly with application teams across the company to understand their traffic patterns and solve their integrated security needs.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the long-term security architecture and roadmap, making critical design decisions on defense-in-depth strategy, threat coverage, scalability, and resilience.
• Design and architect perimeter security solutions - WAF rule engines, DDoS mitigation, bot detection and prevention, TLS policy management, and real-time threat intelligence distribution at Apple-scale.
• Own the security architecture across all proxy tiers - edge, origin/application load balancers, service mesh, and API & AI security gateways - and the orchestration/control plane that manages configuration, policy lifecycle, and fleet-wide enforcement.
• Lead the architecture of security controls across protocols (TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS), ensuring comprehensive coverage against evolving threat vectors.
• Drive technical design reviews, author security architecture documents, and establish design standards and patterns that the broader engineering team follows.
• Bring industry perspective - evaluate emerging threats, security technologies, and defensive approaches; leverage your knowledge to inform strategy and keep Apple's defenses at the forefront.
• Collaborate with engineering managers, partner teams (security, infrastructure, SRE, product), and leadership to align security architecture with organizational goals.
• Partner with Apple's security and cloud infrastructure teams to drive a cohesive security vision across perimeter, network, and application layers.
• Work directly with application teams across Apple to understand their traffic and security requirements, designing integrated solutions that address their specific needs while maintaining platform consistency.
• Mentor and elevate senior engineers through hands-on design collaboration, code reviews, and technical guidance - acting as a force multiplier for the team.
• Proactively identify and address security architecture gaps, systemic risks, and technical debt before they become production vulnerabilities.
• Represent the team's security perspective in cross-organizational architecture forums, security reviews, and industry engagements.

Requirements

• Experience with proxy engine internals - C, C++, Lua, or WASM-based customization of NGINX, Envoy, or similar engines

Additional Information

At Apple, new insights often become revolutionary products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job, and there's no telling what you could accomplish. The Emerging Technologies team within IS&T specializes in building forward-looking, extremely scalable systems and solutions in two areas: Information Security and general-purpose, reusable platforms in the space of Integration and Orchestration. The team has a passion for solving challenging problems, exploring new domains, and engineering transformational solutions. We operate with a startup mindset - lean teams, high ownership, and technical leaders who flex across domains to build and scale new capabilities.

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