Staff Platform Engineer - Low-Latency Serving & AI

Pinterest, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 208,000 - 365,000; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to evolve serving platforms powering Ads and Core experiences. You will lead large-scale, low-latency distributed systems initiatives and define durable platform capabilities across Ads and Core teams.

You will mentor engineers, improve observability, and apply AI to accelerate analysis and iteration while maintaining rigorous testing and reliability. This role requires 8+ years in backend/distributed systems and a BS in CS or related field,

Qualifications

• 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.
• Ability to balance latency, reliability, scalability, cost, and developer experience.
• Strong communication and collaboration across technical and cross-functional partners.
• Proficiency in Java, C++, Go, or Python.
• Experience mentoring engineers and elevating technical standards.
• Experience using AI to improve engineering workflows with rigorous testing and validation.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction and lead architecture for major serving-platform initiatives across Ads and Core.
• Build and operate scalable, highly available systems with measurable performance and reliability goals.
• Partner with product, ML, infrastructure, and Core/Ads teams to translate requirements into platform capabilities.
• Modernize frameworks, evolve APIs, and improve observability and debugging tools.
• Lead complex projects end-to-end from strategy to rollout and operational readiness.
• Apply AI to accelerate analysis, design exploration, and iteration with rigorous validation.
• Raise the quality bar through design reviews and documentation.
• Mentor engineers and scale technical leadership across the organization.

Skills

Distributed systems

Low-latency backends

Leadership across teams

Tradeoff analysis

Communication skills

Java, C++, Go, or Python

Mentoring engineers

AI in engineering workflows

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Pinterest, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to evolve serving platforms powering Ads and Core experiences. You will lead large-scale, low-latency distributed systems initiatives and define durable platform capabilities across Ads and Core teams.

You will mentor engineers, improve observability, and apply AI to accelerate analysis and iteration while maintaining rigorous testing and reliability. This role requires 8+ years in backend/distributed systems and a BS in CS or related field,