The new iPhone XS was released to the public on September 21. The day before that, Apple ($AAPL) job openings jumped from 4,120 to 4,600. That's a jump of around 500 jobs, or 12%. While fluctuations in job openings at Apple is pretty normal, this inflection's timing is particularly interesting.
When looking at Apple job openings in September specifically, it becomes more clear how large this increase really was.
The openings are largely for Engineering positions. Software Engineering openings saw the largest increase, from 971 to 1,140 openings. Hardware Engineering also saw a large jump in job postings, from 978 to 1,100 overnight on September 20.
As for the most common job listings, Software Engineers top the list of top-10 on both dates, followed by Software QA Engineers and Full Stack Software Engineers for Apple News.
|
Top titles September 19 |
Count |
Top titles September 20 |
Count |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Software Engineer |
9 |
Software Engineer |
10 |
|
Full Stack Software Engineer - News |
7 |
Software QA Engineer - AppleNews |
8 |
|
Software QA Engineer - AppleNews |
6 |
Full Stack Software Engineer - News |
7 |
|
Siri - Software Engineer |
6 |
Siri - Software Engineer |
6 |
|
Software Development Engineer |
5 |
Software Development Engineer |
5 |
|
iOS App Developer - Maps |
4 |
Software Engineer - iCloud |
5 |
|
Security Engineer |
4 |
iCloud Data Science Software Engineer - San Francisco |
5 |
|
Sr. Software Engineer, Core Services, Apple Media Products |
4 |
Security Engineer |
4 |
|
iCloud Data Science Software Engineer - San Francisco |
3 |
iOS App Developer - Maps |
4 |
|
Maps Search - Search Engineer |
3 |
Sr. Software Engineer, Core Services, Apple Media Products |
4 |
The hiring spree's timing, while possibly coincidental, is interesting, as it came just a day before Apple released the iPhone XS to the public.
According to early numbers, the new iPhone XS and XS Max have sold well, having accounted for 8% of US iPhone sales for the past quarter each. According to 9to5Mac, that combined 16% share would mean that the new phones are selling better than last year's iPhone X.
