Staff Software Engineer, Observability

Pinterest; United States; On-site; USD 219,000 - 364,795; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Observability team to design and build scalable visibility tools for our large-scale distributed systems. You will shape the observability roadmap, implement metrics, logs, and traces infrastructure, and partner with SRE and Infrastructure to improve reliability and developer productivity.

You should bring deep experience in distributed systems, data pipelines, and modern observability tools, along with excellent collaboration and leadership

Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems with strong reliability.
• Experience building data pipelines and time-series data modeling at scale.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and ability to influence stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the observability roadmap, treating it as a product with measurable impact.
• Architect, build, and scale distributed observability infrastructure (metrics, logs, traces).
• Develop real-time and historical telemetry pipelines and storage at Pinterest scale.
• Establish observability standards and patterns across the organization.
• Mentor engineers and lead architectural reviews to improve system reliability.

Skills

Product Mindset

Distributed Systems

Data Engineering

Observability

OpenTelemetry

Prometheus

Grafana

Java

Python

Go

Scala

System Design

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

Flink

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 theflexibility 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.

We're seeking an exceptional Staff Software Engineer to join our Observability team at Pinterest. This role combines deep technical expertise in distributed systems and data engineering with a product-oriented mindset to build world-class observability solutions that empower our engineering organization. As a Staff Engineer on the Observability team, you'll be responsible for designing and building the infrastructure and tools that provide visibility into Pinterest's large-scale distributed systems, helping thousands of engineers understand, debug, and optimize their services.

What you’ll do

• Define and execute the observability roadmap, treating it as a product. Understand engineering team needs and translate them into technical solutions with measurable impact
• Architect, build, and scale distributed observability infrastructure (metrics, logs, traces) to handle massive volumes across Pinterest's distributed systems
• Build high-performance data pipelines and storage for real-time and historical telemetry analysis at Pinterest scale
• Champion Best Practices: Establish observability standards and patterns across the organization, making it easy for teams to instrument their services and gain actionable insights
• Technical Leadership: Mentor engineers, lead architectural reviews, and influence technical decisions across teams to improve overall system reliability and performance
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner with SRE, Infrastructure, Product Engineering, and other teams to understand pain points and deliver solutions that improve developer productivity and system reliability
• Innovation: Stay current with observability trends and technologies, evaluating and adopting cutting-edge tools and techniques to keep Pinterest at the forefront

What we’re looking for

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Product Mindset: Demonstrated ability to work backwards from customer needs –understanding user needs, prioritizing features, measuring success, and iterating based on feedback. Experience building internal platforms or tools with strong adoption
• Distributed Systems Expertise: 7+ years of experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems with deep understanding of consistency, availability, scalability, and failure modes
• Data Engineering Skills: Strong background in building data pipelines, working with time-series databases, columnar storage, stream processing (Kafka, Flink, etc.), and data modeling at scale
• Observability Domain Knowledge: Hands-on experience with modern observability tools and practices including metrics, logging, tracing, and profiling. Familiarity with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, or similar technologies
• Programming Proficiency: Expert-level coding skills in languages like Java, Python, Go, or Scala with ability to write production-quality code
• Systems Thinking: Ability to see the big picture while managing complex technical details, balancing trade-offs between cost, performance, and reliability
• Experience building observability platforms from the ground up or significantly scaling existing solutions
• Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and technologies (Kubernetes, service mesh, etc.)
• Track record of driving adoption of internal platforms through excellent documentation, UX, and developer advocacy
• Experience with machine learning or anomaly detection applied to observability use cases
• Strong communication skills with ability to influence stakeholders at all levels
• Contributions to open-source observability projects, a plus

In-Office Requirement Statement

• We let the type of work you do guide the collaboration style. That means we're not always working in an office, but we continue to gather for key moments of collaboration and connection.
• This role will need to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times/quarter and therefore can be situated anywhere in the country.

Relocation Statement

• This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.

US based applicants only

$177,185—$364,795 USD

Our Commitment to Inclusion

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. If you require a medical or religious accommodation during the job application process, please completethis form for support.