About Pinterest:
Millions of people around the world come to our platform to find creative ideas, dream about new possibilities and plan for memories that will last a lifetime. At Pinterest, we’re on a mission to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love, and that starts with the people behind the product.
Discover a career where you ignite innovation for millions, transform passion into growth opportunities, celebrate each other’s unique experiences and embrace the flexibility to do your best work. Creating a career you love? It’s Possible.
At Pinterest, AI isn't just a feature, it's a powerful partner that augments our creativity and amplifies our impact, and we’re looking for candidates who are excited to be a part of that. To get a complete picture of your experience and abilities, we’ll explore your foundational skills and how you collaborate with AI.
Through our interview process, what matters most is that you can always explain your approach, showing us not just what you know, but how you think. You can read more about our AI interview philosophy and how we use AI in our recruiting process here.
Pinterest is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to help evolve the serving platforms that power Ads and Core experiences. You will lead large-scale, low-latency distributed-system initiatives that make our serving stack more performant, reliable, observable, and easier to extend.
You will work across Ads and Core engineering teams to define durable platform capabilities, modernize frameworks, and unlock faster product iteration with high confidence in production.
What you’ll do:
- Set technical direction and lead architecture for major serving-platform initiatives across Ads and Core.
- Build and operate scalable, highly available systems with clear performance, reliability, and efficiency goals.
- Partner with product, ML, infrastructure, and Core/Ads engineering teams to translate complex requirements into reusable platform capabilities.
- Improve the serving stack through framework modernization, API evolution, experimentation controls, observability, and debugging tools.
- Lead complex projects end to end: technical strategy, design, implementation, rollout, adoption, and operational readiness.
- Use AI to accelerate analysis, debugging, design exploration, and iteration while applying sound engineering judgment and validation.
- Raise the quality bar through design reviews, code reviews, documentation, and operational excellence.
- Mentor engineers and scale technical leadership across the organization.
What we’re looking for:
- 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating production backend or distributed systems.
- Experience leading complex technical initiatives across teams or organizations.
- Strong expertise in distributed systems, online serving, low-latency services, or infrastructure platforms.
- Demonstrated ability to make sound tradeoffs across latency, reliability, scalability, cost, and developer experience.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills with technical and cross-functional partners.
- Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as Java, C++, Go, or Python.
- Experience mentoring engineers and elevating technical standards.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve the speed and quality of day-to-day engineering workflows, with a rigorous approach to testing, validation, and responsible use.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
- Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with ads delivery, recommendation or search serving, retrieval, ranking, or experimentation systems.
- Experience with serving-framework migrations, platform consolidation, or developer tooling.
- Experience with observability, production debugging, traffic management, or incident response.
Relocation Statement:
- This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.
In-Office Requirement Statement:
- We recognize that the ideal environment for work is situational and may differ across departments. What this looks like day-to-day can vary based on the needs of each organization or role.
- This role will need to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times per week and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices Palo Alto OR San Francisco
#LI-HYBRID
#LI-AG8
At Pinterest we believe the workplace should be equitable, inclusive, and inspiring for every employee. In an effort to provide greater transparency, we are sharing the base salary range for this position. The position is also eligible for equity. Final salary is based on a number of factors including location, travel, relevant prior experience, or particular skills and expertise.
Information regarding the culture at Pinterest and benefits available for this position can be found here.
Our Commitment to Inclusion:
Pinterest San Francisco, California, USA Office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Pinterest Palo Alto, California, USA Office
Palo Alto, United States
Similar Jobs
What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene
Key Facts About San Francisco Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 365,500; 13.9% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Google, Apple, Salesforce, Meta
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech, consumer technology, software
- Funding Landscape: $50.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins
- Research Centers and Universities: Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Francisco; Santa Clara University; Ames Research Center; Center for AI Safety; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
