Apple
Aesthetics Scientist
$185K–$278K
Cupertino, California · Full-time · Posted Oct 2, 2026
- Experience
- 5+ years of relevant experience, including 1+ years conducting research on a product development team.
- Education
- PhD in aesthetics, vision science, cognitive science, psychology, or a related field (preferred).
About the job
Leads imaging aesthetics research and translates findings about photographic preferences and human perception into Camera and Photos software features.
What you'll do
- Design and conduct user studies, including recruitment and quantitative and qualitative analysis, and build tools, analytics frameworks, and dashboards.
- Manage research operations, including protocols, approvals, and vendor management; apply rigorous statistical standards.
- Propose and run research projects that inform feature development in collaboration with research leads and cross-functional teams.
What they ask for
- Demonstrable track record conducting perceptual or aesthetics research.
- Programming experience in R, Python, MATLAB, or similar, and experience with research software tools.
- Experience designing and conducting human perception experiments and/or working with algorithmic recommendation systems.
Nice to have
- PhD in aesthetics, vision science, cognitive science, psychology, or a related field.
- Expertise in contemporary photography, visual storytelling, or photographic aesthetics; UX, Swift, AI research workflows, additional languages, travel, or peer-reviewed publications are also noted as preferred.
Pay
$184,700 and $277,600 (base salary range)
Tools
R, Python, MATLAB, SWIFT
AI focus
Familiarity with AI tools and incorporating them into research workflows is preferred; no specific AI development work is stated.
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