Want to work for Apple? Explore the careers and skills you’ll need to succeed

Apple is one of the world’s most recognisable brands. The tech giant is often among the top companies employees want to work for each year, and it’s hardly surprising why. The two trillion dollar company has punctuated its global influence with its sleek designs and innovative products, winning legions of fans in the process. 

Over the years, Apple has continued to push boundaries to develop products such as the iPod mini, iPhone, Apple TV, iPad and MacBook Air, to name a few. In order to design, produce and market these products, the company needs a wealth of talent — including those with technical and non-technical skills — for its goals to come to fruition.

If you’re curious about the types of roles that are available at Apple and the skills needed to clinch them, the company recently launched a new Careers at Apple website. 

What kind of careers are available within Apple?

There are myriad of opportunities at Apple, be it within hardware, design, machine learning and AI to marketing functions as well as sales and business development. Here are some examples:

Machine Learning and AI

You can find several teams within this function, including Machine Learning Infrastructure, Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning, and Natural Language Processing and Speech Technologies.

There are many areas of work within this function. This includes roles such as back-end engineering, data science, platform engineering, systems engineering, text-to-speech software engineering, deep learning, reinforcement learning, and research.

Individuals who work within Apple’s ML and AI roles may have diverse education backgrounds, be it a bachelor’s to master’s, or relevant work experience. 

Design

Apple is known for its sleek designs. It notes on its website that “design can make technology more approachable and usable.” Design also goes beyond aesthetics — it is also about how it influences the user experience. 

Their Industrial Design team plays a pivotal role at every stage of the product development process, from the preliminary concept to the production of the painstakingly crafted final product. 

Areas of work include industrial/product design; CAD sculpting; human factors research; colour engineering; and textile/materials expertise.

If you’re interested in the human aspect of design, the Human Interface Design team plays a role in conceptualising, designing and creating the user experience for all Apple products, services, and accessories. 

“They consider each human interaction — including every visual, audible, and haptic experience — to create products that are not only beautiful, but also intuitive and useful,” Apple notes. Areas of work include prototype design, motion design, sound design, and production.

Those interested in creating visual materials for Apple’s products and services can find areas of work within the Communications Design team which include graphic design, typography, packaging design, instructional design, merchandising, and video and motion graphics.

Marketing

Apple’s marketing teams include Services Marketing, Product Marketing, Marketing Communications and Corporate Communications.

Areas of work varies depending on the team, but they may include digital marketing, social marketing, direct marketing, business marketing, graphic design, copywriting, and public relations, to name a few.

Depending on the role, a bachelor’s degree may suffice, but some roles may have a preference for candidates with a master’s or MBA.