Main image of article Apple's Top Programming Language for Job Candidates Isn't Swift

This week, Apple rolled out new editions of the iPhone and other hardware. Although the company is pushing hard into cloud-based services (such as Apple TV+ and Apple Music), mobile devices remain its primary revenue driver. With all that in mind, what skills does Apple want its job candidates to possess?

For an answer, we can turn to Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country. Although the platform can’t list every single job available at Apple (where some positions are never posted publicly), it can give us a good idea of the tech skills that the company wants. The following breakdown represents 90 days of job-posting data:

That Python tops this list should come as little surprise. Not only is Python one of the world’s most popular programming languages, but it’s used increasingly in artificial intelligence (A.I.), machine learning, and data science, which are disciplines that the company has aggressively embraced (and also place prominently on this list). If recent rumors prove correct, there may be a number of cloud positions open within Apple, as well.

As you might expect, Apple is also intensely interested in technologists who know the principles of software engineering and development, including QA, debugging, and analysis. Given its focus on integrating hardware tightly with software, anyone who works at Apple must be good at teamwork, communication, and other “soft skills,” which are all necessary components of cross-team work. 

Many roles at Apple also require knowledge of Swift and Objective-C, the core programming languages of the Apple ecosystem. If you want a role at the company that overlaps in any way with iOS, macOS, or any of its other software platforms, you’ll need to know these languages. During the interview process, it’ll pay to show off any apps or other projects you’ve built in Swift (and Objective-C, to a lesser degree—Apple is trying to phase out that older language).