Something is afoot at Apple ($AAPL), and it has a lot to do with Siri. In early April, Apple was hiring about 125 people for its Siri development team. But as of this week, that number shot up to 176, and appears to be on pace to outstrip hiring for the Siri team at any other time in history.
The job postings uptick occured this week, as openings moved from 145 on June 1 to 176 on June 9 - an increase of more than 20%.
We've covered Apple's hiring trends for Siri ever since the company went on a major spree last year and hired Google's AI chief to head up Siri's future. But we haven't seen such a sharp uptick in job postings for Siri in quite some time.
The openings are largely for engineers of various ilk, including Software Engineers, Analytics Engineers, Build Engineers, as well as Data Scientists specializing in machine learning and natural language processing. But there's a new international focus to Siri as it appears to be in the deep learning stages for multiple languages.
The 10 most-common job titles appear below with the number of openings Apple is currently listing.
|
Title |
Title (Count) |
|---|---|
|
Siri - Software Engineer |
7 |
|
Siri - Search/Domains Backend Software Engineer |
3 |
|
Siri - Analytics Engineer - Siri Data Organization |
2 |
|
Siri - Data Pipeline Engineer, Data organization |
2 |
|
Siri - International Modeler Lead (French) |
2 |
|
Siri - Senior Data Scientist (Machine Learning & Natural Language) |
2 |
|
Siri - Senior Quality Engineer, Full Stack |
2 |
|
Siri - Senior Software Engineer -Voice Experiences, Domains |
2 |
|
Siri - Software Quality Engineer, Machine Learning and Automated Systems |
2 |
|
Siri - iOS Engineer, Shortcuts |
2 |
While Apple's Santa Clara Valley headquarters is to house the vast majority of these hires, Seattle, Cambridge, and Barcelona have all listed multiple openings for Siri teams.
|
Location Text |
Title (Count) |
|---|---|
|
Santa Clara Valley (Cupertino) |
99 |
|
Seattle |
18 |
|
Cambridge |
13 |
|
Barcelona |
12 |
|
Beijing |
9 |
|
Hong Kong |
6 |
|
Paris |
6 |
|
Tokyo |
3 |
|
Ottawa |
2 |
|
Pittsburgh |
2 |
|
San Francisco |
2 |
|
Elk Grove |
1 |
|
Hyderabad |
1 |
|
Munich |
1 |
Interestingly, the Barcelona, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Paris, Siri teams are hiring for a group of international linguists to engineer natural language processing in various tongues. Meanwhile, the California and Seattle teams remain focused on engineering. And, the Cambridge team — who we've covered before — continues to build out a team focused on machine learning.
|
Location Text |
Title |
Title (Count) |
|---|---|---|
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Linguist (Russian) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Linguist (Turkish) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Modeler Lead (German) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Modeler Lead (UK English) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Quality Engineer (German) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - International Quality Engineer (UK English) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (Danish) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (Norwegian) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (Russian) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (Swedish) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (Turkish) |
1 |
|
Barcelona |
Siri - Language Engineer (UK English) |
1 |
Apple's scramble to make Siri an everyday part of consumers' experience has been long and, in some cases, difficult. Both consumers and analysts tend to agree that Amazon's Alexa and Google's Digital Assistant are "smarter" than Apple's voice-activated AI. It's clear, based on Apple's hiring activity, that it hopes to reverse this, especially as it seeks to get deeper into consumers' living rooms — and wallets — with its new services like Apple TV Plus and News Plus.