About the role
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 hiring a Staff Software Engineer for Merchants & Ads Review.
This team is responsible for keeping our platform safe from malicious advertisers, low-quality merchants, and policy violating ads, while helping the business grow revenue and expand to new markets, verticals, policies, and ad types.
In this role, you’ll lead our AI-first efforts, building and evolving our review systems. You’ll partner closely with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and experts from Policy, Legal, and Trust & Safety to drive our systems forward. You act as a mentor to the rest of the team, helping them grow their careers and accelerate their velocity with AI tooling. This is a high agency, high impact role with a broad scope and direct levers on both revenue and platform safety.
What you’ll do:
- Own end-to-end technical delivery for cross-team initiatives—from problem framing and technical strategy through architecture, implementation, rollout, and iteration.
- Build and evolve ML-, GenAI-, and AI-assisted merchant, ad, and advertiser review experiences with strong validation and guardrails.
- Mentor junior and senior engineers and raise the bar for technical design, engineering quality, and production readiness across the team.
- Partner with cross-functional stakeholders on a variety of projects to improve the safety of our platform, increase efficiency, reduce time to spend, and generate revenue
- Use AI to accelerate your own work—across exploration, drafting, analysis, and synthesis—while maintaining strong judgment, rigorous validation, and accountability for outcomes.
What we’re looking for:
- 8+ years of software engineering experience, including meaningful time as a Staff, Senior Staff, or equivalent-level IC building and operating complex production systems.
- Strong track record in ads, commerce, trust & safety, or GenAI.
- Deep experience in systems design, full-stack software engineering, and data-intensive systems, with the ability to navigate tradeoffs in performance, reliability, and scalability.
- Experience building or partnering on ML-, AI-, or GenAI-adjacent systems, with a pragmatic understanding of where these technologies add value and how to deploy them responsibly.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction without directly owning every implementation detail.
- Demonstrated experience building and enhancing cross-functional partnerships with other teams and organizations.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field—or equivalent practical 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 times per week and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices SF/Palo Alto Office.
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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.
Our Commitment to Inclusion:
Aplyr's read
Pinterest is a hub for creative inspiration, attracting individuals passionate about visual discovery and digital content curation.
What's promising
- •Pinterest's unique visual discovery platform attracts a creative and engaged user base.
- •The company offers diverse roles, from engineering to creative strategy, indicating growth and innovation.
- •Pinterest's focus on machine learning and big data suggests a strong investment in technology.
What to watch
- •Pinterest faces stiff competition from other social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
- •Monetization challenges persist, particularly in converting user engagement into revenue.
- •The company's reliance on ad revenue makes it vulnerable to economic downturns.
Why Pinterest
- •Pinterest's platform centers on visual discovery rather than traditional social networking.
- •The company emphasizes user inspiration and idea curation over personal connections.
- •Pinterest's integration of machine learning enhances personalized content discovery.
Aplyr’s read is generated by AI from public sources. Was it useful?
About Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual discovery engine that allows users to find and save ideas for various interests, including home decor, fashion, and recipes. By enabling users to curate and share their inspirations, Pinterest has become a significant platform for creativity and planning, impacting how people discover and engage with content online.
