Staff Software Engineer, Trends Engineering

Pinterest; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 177,185 - 364,795; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical vision for the Trends and Audience Insights platform, an AI-powered initiative turning signals into actionable advertiser insights. You’ll shape scalable data pipelines, guide cross-functional teams across Ads, Product, Data Science, and Design, and drive prototype-to-production delivery while ensuring safety and quality.

This role blends large-scale data, ML, and product innovation with mentorship of engineers and a focus on

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in software engineering for large-scale data/ML platforms.
• Experience with AI tooling and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for unified audience-first insights platform.
• Architect scalable data pipelines and generate reusable insights.
• Lead delivery of roadmap bets from prototype to production.
• Integrate LLM-powered capabilities with safety, quality guardrails.
• Partner with Product, Design, Data Science, and Ads orgs to embed insights.
• Mentor engineers and establish measurement practices linking insight quality to adoption and revenue.

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 where inspiration turns into intent, and the Trends & Insights Engineering team transforms that intent into products that help advertisers move at the speed of culture. We build the systems and experiences that turn signals from what people are planning, saving, shopping for, and engaging with across Pinterest and the broader digital world into actionable intelligence. By connecting emerging trends from platforms like Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram, and beyond, we help advertisers understand what matters now, what’s coming next, and how to show up with relevance. As a Staff Software Engineer on this team, you’ll lead the technical vision for the next generation of insights products, evolving Pinterest Trends and Audience Insights into a unified, AI-powered platform for advertisers. You’ll work at the intersection of large-scale data, machine learning, product innovation, and ads, building experiences that shape campaign strategy, creative development, and budget decisions across the Pinterest Ads ecosystem. This is a chance to define entirely new products, influence the direction of a fast-growing space, and help brands tap into culture and consumer intent in ways only Pinterest can enable.

What you’ll do:

Set the technical direction for a unified, audience-first insights platform that powers Pinterest Trends, Audience Insights, and recommendations embedded across Ads Manager surfaces. Architect scalable data pipelines and systems that generate reusable, personalized insights from Pinterest's trend, audience, and content signals. Lead delivery of high-impact roadmap bets such as Trends Digest, Moments, Topics expansion, and Product Attributes from prototype to production. Integrate LLM-powered capabilities (summarization, classification, conversational insights, agentic review) with strong safety, quality, and evaluation guardrails. Partner with Product, Design, Data Science, and Ads org teams to bring proactive, contextual insights into advertiser workflows beyond standalone surfaces. Use AI to accelerate prototyping, design exploration, and code generation iterating across more options earlier while applying engineering judgment and verification to ensure correctness and quality. Use AI to synthesize research, summarize large datasets, and automate repeatable engineering tasks like documentation, test generation, and data QA checks. Mentor engineers across the team, raise the technical bar, and establish measurement practices that connect insight quality to advertiser adoption and revenue impact.

What we’re looking for:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent experience. 8+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time designing large-scale data or ML-powered platforms that serve customer-facing products. Ability to work with cross-functional partners across multiple organizations. Hands‑on experience building tools and data pipelines leveraging AI coding tools, e.g. Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, etc. Experience as the product‑engineering counterpart on an AI-first product launch from prototype to scale. Demonstrated experience using AI to accelerate engineering and analysis workflows, with a clear approach to validating accuracy, performance, and quality. Strong track record of critical evaluation and verification of AI-assisted work — testing, source‑checking, data validation, and peer review. Experience leading cross‑surface product integrations across multiple teams and organizational boundaries, not just standalone tools.

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 understand that optimal work environments are highly situational and vary between departments. Day‑to‑day expectations shift based on specific organizational needs or the nature of the role. In‑person collaboration is required once every quarter; candidates must reside within commuting distance of our San Francisco or Palo Alto hubs.

US based applicants only$177,185—$364,795 USD

Information regarding the culture at Pinterest and benefits available for this position can be found here.

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.

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By submitting this application, I certify that all information submitted in my application and throughout the hiring process is true, accurate, and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that any false statement, omission, or misrepresentation may disqualify me from employment consideration or result in termination if discovered after hire.