Staff Software Engineer, TwoTwenty

Pinterest; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 177,000 - 365,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the backend direction for AI-driven product experiences such as Pinterest Assistant and LLM-based tools. You will design scalable backend systems, drive technical roadmaps, and mentor teams across surfaces and groups.

You will work on API layers, orchestration, data models, and safety controls while shaping platform strategy for fast, reliable AI-powered experiences. This role blends hands-on coding with architecture leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 6 years of backend software engineering with impact on teams or org.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple teams.
• Strong Python development skills with large codebases.
• Experience building at scale on distributed systems with caching and queues.
• Experience building LLM-powered or ML-backed products in production.
• Demonstrated ability to apply AI to improve speed and quality of workflows.
• High integrity and ownership; protect data and ensure accountability.

Responsibilities

• Define the backend and platform architecture for AI-driven product experiences.
• Architect end-to-end systems across API, orchestration, logging, storage and safety.
• Lead resolution of complex challenges like LLM inference and latency vs. quality.
• Design and implement production backend systems with endpoints and data models.
• Use AI to accelerate prototyping, evaluation design and code generation.
• Create and evolve tooling and evaluation frameworks for LLM-based experiences.
• Guide design of complex projects spanning multiple teams and drive alignment.
• Improve monitoring, alerting, incident response, and capacity planning; mentor engineers.

Skills

Python development

Distributed systems

LLM/ML in prod

Technical leadership

AI in engineering workflows

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

LLM infra

Cloud orchestration

Caching/storage tech

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.

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.

We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical direction of the backend systems powering Pinterest's AI-driven product experiences — Pinterest Assistant, visual editing and content creation tools and future LLM-based products. You'll design and ship backend systems while architecting the broader platform strategy that enables these experiences to scale across surfaces and teams. This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll move between deep technical execution, system-level architecture and cross-team technical leadership.

What You'll Do

• Define the backend and platform architecture for AI-driven product experiences — visual-chat, AI image generation and editing, and agentic or LLM-based products — partnering with Engineering, Product, ML and UX leaders to shape the technical vision and roadmap.
• Architect end-to-end systems spanning API layers, orchestration, logging, evaluation, storage and safety controls, ensuring solutions scale across multiple products and teams.
• Lead resolution of complex technical challenges — e.g., scaling LLM inference for real-time features, balancing latency vs. quality in AI-generated content, and standardizing backend capabilities for reuse.
• Design and implement production backend systems including API endpoints, orchestration layers, data models, caching strategies and integrations with Pinterest's LLM infrastructure.
• Use AI to accelerate prototyping, evaluation design and code generation, while applying judgment and verification to ensure correctness and quality.
• Create and evolve shared tooling and evaluation frameworks for LLM-based experiences, including offline eval pipelines, A/B testing hooks, quality metrics and observability.
• Guide the design of projects with significant complexity and ambiguity spanning multiple teams — setting technical direction, reviewing critical design docs and driving alignment across cross-functional partners.
• Raise the bar on operational excellence by improving monitoring, alerting, incident response, capacity planning and service health — and mentor engineers to develop stronger ownership habits and grow into technical leaders.

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 6 years of backend software engineering experience with a track record of leading and shipping projects with substantial impact on team-level or org-level goals.
• Experience operating as a technical leader for large, ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives spanning one or more teams.
• Strong Python development skills — you write idiomatic, well-structured, maintainable Python and can confidently navigate and improve large codebases.
• Experience building on top of distributed systems — you've designed, built and operated services at scale, with strong judgment around caching, async processing, data storage tradeoffs, choosing existing database, indexing, and queueing solutions.
• Experience building LLM-powered or ML-backed products in production — you understand model integration, prompt and orchestration strategies, evaluation, latency/cost tradeoffs and operational challenges of AI-backed services.
• Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and quality in your day-to-day workflow, with a clear approach to validating accuracy and quality of AI-assisted work.
• High integrity and ownership: you protect sensitive data, avoid over-reliance on AI and remain accountable for final decisions and deliverables.

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.

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.

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

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.