Sr. Staff Software Engineer, AI Platform

Posted Yesterday
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Hiring Remotely in Palo Alto, CA, USA
In-Office or Remote
209K-429K Annually
Senior level
Social Media
Our mission is to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love.
The Role
Lead the technical strategy, architecture, modernization, and company-wide adoption of Pinterest’s AI/ML evaluation platform. Design reliable evaluation systems for GenAI and machine learning workloads using automated metrics, human feedback, expert judgment, safety assessments, and business outcomes. Drive cross-team workstreams, resolve technical tradeoffs, establish evaluation standards, and improve the quality, reliability, and trustworthiness of AI-powered products.
Summary Generated by Built In

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.

The AI Platform team delivers essential tools and infrastructure utilized by hundreds of AI and ML engineers across Pinterest, powering crucial functions such as recommendations, ads, visual search, growth/notifications, and trust and safety. Our primary objectives are to ensure AI and ML systems maintain production-grade quality and enable rapid iteration for our customers.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the AI Platform team, you will shape and scale Pinterest’s AI/ML evaluation platform into a unified, reliable system adopted company-wide. You will identify modernization opportunities, elevate the roadmap, and execute technical strategy of a durable evaluation system for GenAI and ML workloads at Pinterest, partnering across engineering, research, product, and safety to improve quality, launch decisions, and trust in AI-powered experiences.

What you’ll do: 

  • Identify modernization opportunities and scale the roadmap for a company-wide evaluation system in partnership with technical leadership
  • Define cross-team technical strategy, align partner teams, and drive broad adoption of shared evaluation capabilities
  • Make durable architectural decisions that improve the user experience and reliability of Pinterest’s AI/ML evaluation platform
  • Establish evaluation methodologies and standards that balance automated metrics, expert judgment, human feedback, safety, and business outcomes
  • Lead complex cross-team workstreams, resolve technical tradeoffs and risks, and deliver impact

What we’re looking for:

  • 3+ years of deep, hands-on experience designing and operating evaluation systems for GenAI and complex ML systems, including benchmark design, golden datasets, automated metrics, human evaluation, model-based grading, and failure analysis
  • Strong programming skills in Python coupled with a solid grasp of distributed systems principles, and comfortable iterating with AI tools on coding and design
  • Deep familiarity with GenAI and RecSys evaluation libraries and frameworks, AutoEvals, OpenEvals, Ragas, etc
  • 5+ years of experience building scalable platforms for distributed experimentation, data and model versioning, orchestration, observability, release management, and production monitoring
  • Strong judgment around GenAI risks, including robustness, bias, privacy, security, and the limitations of automated evaluation signals
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience

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.

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-AH2

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
$208,592—$429,454 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.

Skills Required

  • 3+ years of hands-on experience designing and operating evaluation systems for GenAI and complex machine learning systems
  • Experience with benchmark design, golden datasets, automated metrics, human evaluation, model-based grading, and failure analysis
  • Strong programming skills in Python
  • Understanding of distributed systems principles
  • Familiarity with GenAI and recommender system evaluation libraries and frameworks, including AutoEvals, OpenEvals, and Ragas
  • 5+ years of experience building scalable platforms for distributed experimentation, data and model versioning, orchestration, observability, release management, and production monitoring
  • Strong judgment regarding GenAI risks, including robustness, bias, privacy, security, and limitations of automated evaluation signals
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience

Pinterest Compensation & Benefits Highlights

The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Pinterest and has not been reviewed or approved by Pinterest.

  • Fair & Transparent Compensation — Compensation is considered competitive in core technical roles, with clearly defined base, bonus, and RSU components. Vesting schedules and pay elements are articulated clearly, supporting visibility into total rewards.
  • Parental & Family Support — Policies include substantial paid parental leave globally alongside fertility and family‑building benefits, adoption assistance, and dedicated caregiver supports. Communications also highlight a phased return‑to‑work approach.
  • Flexible Benefits — PinFlex enables role‑dependent hybrid/remote work with home‑office, connectivity, and commuter support, plus the option to work internationally for a limited period with approval. Time away is reinforced by a paid company shutdown and generous vacation framing.

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The Company
HQ: San Francisco, CA

What We Do

Pinterest is the visual inspiration platform people around the world use to shop products personalized to their taste, find ideas to do offline and discover the most inspiring creators. Today, more than 460 million people come to the platform every month to explore and experience billions of ideas that have been saved. We’re proud to help people to discover and do what they love.

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