Staff Software Engineer, Workflow Platform

Pinterest; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 177,000 - 365,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking a senior leader to design, build, and operate our data control planes—Workflow and Data context platforms. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to unlock innovations and drive architectural decisions that power Pinterest’s data and AI-driven features.

You will guide complex programs, strengthen reliability, and push for scalable, modern infrastructures while engaging with open-source communities like Airflow, Datahub, and Jupyter notebook.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Proficiency in Python or Java.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, optimize, and operate Pinterest’s data control plane – Workflow platform, Data context platform.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and partner teams across the organization to design technologies that unlock innovations.
• Lead complex technical projects from architecture through execution.
• Lead the team to strengthen reliability and performance.
• Shape the long-term technical direction for scalable, reliable data control planes.
• Lead the team’s product direction to be AI native.

Skills

Python

Java

Leadership

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or equivalent

Tools

Apache Airflow

Datahub

Jupyter Notebook

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. Pinterest app provides value to users by providing them inspiring items (pins), either by searching or by browsing. Pinterest is able to provide inspiring / relevant items to users by analyzing huge amounts of data, producing critical data assets, ML data, ML model training to power the business. The Workflow platform team is in the center of making this happen by being the main control plane of the Data eco-system. There are three main products team own: 1. Workflow platform (Opensource: Airflow): Empower engineers, data scientists, ML engineers, analysts, etc to build pipelines, build ML features, train ML models, etc to build core dataset, to build business critical metrics, to power relevance of Pinterest apps feed & search. It is a critical platform not only in Data engineering but also to Pinterest overall. 2. Data catalogue/governance/context platform. (Opensource: Datahub) Provide data governance, data discovery and recently being the center of data context platform powering AI agents. 3. Jupyter notebook infrastructure: Power data scientists & engineers to interactively analyze data and schedule business critical reports used by thousands of users.

What You’ll Do

• Design, implement, optimize, and operate Pinterest’s data control plane – Workflow platform, Data context platform.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and partner teams across the organization to design technologies that unlock innovations.
• Lead complex technical projects and initiatives driving them from architecture through execution.
• Lead the team to strengthen reliability and performance.
• Shape the long-term technical direction for scalable, reliable, and modernized data control planes.
• Lead the team’s product direction to be AI native.
• Engage with and contribute to open source communities such as Apache Airflow, Datahub, and Jupyter notebook to solve Pinterest’s challenges.

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years of relevant industry experience designing, building, operating large-scale production distributed systems.
• Strong experience designing and maintaining infrastructure platforms.
• Proficiency in programming languages like Python or Java.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and influence architecture across teams.
• Strong collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills, with a drive for technical excellence and innovation.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science, or equivalent experience.

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 collaboration 1-2 times/quarter and therefore can be situated anywhere in the country.

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

$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 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.