Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Bidding & Pacing

Pinterest; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 223,000 - 390,000; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking an ML engineer to design target ROAS and automatic bidding and pacing algorithms for ads, exploring bid landscapes to maximize revenue and advertiser value, and work with product and sales to implement bidding strategies for new ad products.

You will conduct AB tests to improve bidding algorithms, collaborate with other teams to identify opportunities, and leverage AI coding assistants and LLM-powered tools to accelerate development while ensuring the reliability of

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS, Statistics, or related field or equivalent experience.
• 6+ years in ads delivery, automatic bidding, pacing, or ML.
• Staff-level IC with cross-team alignment.
• Experience using AI to improve workflow and validate AI outputs.
• Experience with bidding or pacing is a plus.
• Experience with AI coding assistants like Cursor, Copilot, Codex is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Design target ROAS and automatic bidding and pacing algorithms for ads.
• Explore bid landscapes to maximize revenue and advertiser value.
• Collaborate with product and sales to implement bidding strategies for new ad products.
• Run AB experiments to test bidding algorithm improvements.
• Identify bidding and budgeting opportunities across teams.

Skills

AI coding assistants

Bidding & pacing

Technical leadership

Experimentation

SQL/data exploration

AI productivity tools

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Statistics

Tools

Cursor

Copilot

Codex

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.

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing online ad platforms, and our success depends on building a suite of bid strategies that help advertisers achieve their goals within the Pinterest marketplace. We support both automatic bidding (maximizes the number of clicks, conversions and GMV) as well as target average bidding (CPA or ROAS targets) for Pinterest ads. We're looking for an ML engineer with experience in ads delivery, machine learning, bid landscapes, and automatic bidding / ads pacing to develop new data-driven techniques to drive ads delivery performance and maximum ROI for advertisers, growing Pinterest's revenue stream.

What you'll do:

• Design target ROAS and automatic bidding & pacing algorithms for ads.
• Explore bid landscapes to maximize revenue and advertiser value.
• Work with product and sales teams to design and implement bidding strategies for new ad products.
• A/B Experiment with bidding algorithm improvement ideas.
• Collaborate with other teams to identify bidding and budgeting opportunities and capitalize on them.

What we're looking for:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of industry experience in ads delivery, automatic bidding / pacing, target ROAS bidding, ads marketplace / utility, or machine learning.
• Proven Staff-level technical leadership as an IC: driving technical direction and cross-team alignment without formal people management.
• Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and quality of your workflow, with a strong track record of validating and stress-testing AI-assisted outputs.
• Degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field.
• Direct experience specifically with bidding or pacing is a big plus.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, statistics, engineering, or
• Experience with Cursor, Copilot, Codex, or similar AI coding assistants for development, debugging, testing, and refactoring.
• Familiarity with LLM-powered productivity tools for documentation search, experiment analysis, SQL/data exploration, and engineering workflow acceleration.

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 collaboration3 times per quarterand therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices: San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle.

#LI-HYRBID

#LI-SM4

Our Commitment to Inclusion:

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

$222,716 — $389,753 USD

We’re an equal opportunity employer and make 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. If you require a medical or religious accommodation during the job application process, please completethis form for support.