Sr. Technical Program Manager, Data Engineering

Pinterest; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 124,000 - 255,000; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest’s Data Engineering organization builds and operates the data platforms that power Pinterest products — the batch and streaming pipelines, storage layers, and analytics platforms that fuel experimentation and decision-making. We’re embarking on a multi-year modernization with streaming-first ingestion, Iceberg formats, and a consolidated workflow platform.

This TPM role leads cross-team programs, drives migrations, builds dashboards, and uses AI to streamline processes while

Qualifications

• 5+ years of TPM experience leading complex, cross-functional technical programs.
• Strong understanding of batch/streaming data platforms, storage layers, and workflow orchestrators.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills; experience building dashboards and deriving insights.
• Collaborative with senior engineering and business stakeholders in high-visibility settings.
• Comfort with ambiguity and shifting priorities on a fast-moving roadmap.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead a multi-quarter portfolio of data platform modernization programs across ingestion, table format migrations, and workflow consolidation.
• Drive cross-team execution on migrations involving many producers and consumers; manage timeline, dependency, and risk.
• Build and maintain program dashboards and reporting for leadership with progress, savings, risk, and decisions.
• Own reporting for a large data infrastructure efficiency portfolio with DRIs and finance/InfraGov stakeholders.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs and program status to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Use GenAI to create AI-assisted drafts of core artifacts and modernize high-toil workflows into AI-first processes.
• Prototype AI-enabled solutions (dashboards, data analysis, internal tools) to augment decisions.

Skills

TPM experience

Cross-functional leadership

Analytics & dashboards

Stakeholder communication

Ambiguity management

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Kafka

Flink

Iceberg

Job description

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.

The Team

Pinterest's Data Engineering organization builds and operates the data platforms that power every Pinterest product — the batch and streaming pipelines that produce training data for our ML models, the storage and table formats that back our data lake, the workflow orchestration that runs it all, and the analytics platforms that fuel experimentation and decision-making. We're in the middle of a multi-year modernization effort: moving to streaming-first ingestion (CDC, Kafka, Flink), open table formats (Iceberg), a consolidated workflow platform, and retiring legacy footprints along the way. We work closely with ML, product, and analytics teams to make Pinterest's data platforms faster, more reliable, and more cost-efficient.

What You'll Do:

• Lead a multi-quarter portfolio of data platform modernization programs — spanning ingestion (CDC/Kafka/Flink), table format migrations (Hive to Iceberg), workflow consolidation, and legacy system deprecation — partnering with engineering leads across the Data Engineering organization.
• Drive cross-team execution on migrations that involve many producer and consumer teams, managing timeline, dependency, and risk across service owners.
• Build and maintain program dashboards and reporting that give engineering and Platforms leadership a clear, current view of progress, validated savings, risk, and decisions.
• Own the reporting and tracking function for a large data infrastructure efficiency portfolio, coordinating with team-level DRIs and partner finance/InfraGov stakeholders.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs and program status clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, from individual engineers to senior leadership.
• Use GenAI as the default operating model for EP PgM execution—producing AI-assisted first drafts of core program artifacts, modernizing high-toil workflows into AI-first mechanisms (e.g., intake triage, status synthesis, action/decision extraction, risk & dependency tracking), and synthesizing signals to proactively surface risks, decision/trade-offs, and escalation paths.
• Prototype solutions to augment decisions through data (e.g. dashboards, data analysis) or simplify processes (e.g. process and workflow helpers, or internal tools) using AI coding assistants ("vibe coding").
• Follow Pinterest AI guidance for risk, governance, and safety-by-design: appropriately handle sensitive data, validate AI-generated outputs, document assumptions/limits, and ensure AI-assisted workflows meet applicable policy/compliance expectations before broad adoption.

What We're Looking For:

• 5+ years of TPM experience leading complex, cross-functional technical programs, ideally within large-scale data platforms, streaming systems, or data infrastructure modernization efforts.
• Solid understanding of the principles behind large-scale data platforms — batch/streaming pipelines, table formats, storage layers, workflow orchestrators — and the tradeoffs involved in modernizing them.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience building dashboards, interpreting data, and using insights to drive decisions and validate savings.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with a track record of partnering with senior engineering and business stakeholders in high-visibility settings.
• Comfort with ambiguity and shifting priorities across a fast-moving, multi-workstream roadmap.
• Experience with data platforms, streaming systems (Kafka, Flink), or open table formats (Iceberg) is a plus; willingness to learn and grow across domains is essential.
• Workflow design, AI fluency, data & insights orientation: experience turning repeatable program work into durable, low-toil mechanisms and improving decision-making by using GenAI (e.g., strong prompting, vibe coding lightweight scripts/tools, dashboards, data analysis and leveraging agents where appropriate)
• Safety-by-design AI fluency: experience operating within AI governance expectations (risk assessment, data handling, model/output validation, auditability/traceability) and proactively identifying where AI use is not appropriate or requires additional controls.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field or equivalent experience.

Join us and help shape the foundation of Pinterest's data platform!

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 every 6 months and therefore can be situated anywhere in the country.

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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.

US based applicants only

$123,684 — $254,644 USD

Pinterest is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions on the basis of merit. We want to have the best qualified people in every job. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member) or any other consideration made unlawful by applicable federal, state or local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.