Principal Software Engineer, ML & Media Infra
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Job description
About the Position
Principal Software Engineer, ML & Media Infra
Palo Alto, CA; US; San Francisco, CA, US
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.
Responsibilities
- Set the technical vision and roadmap for model training and serving, with reusable interfaces to data and feature infrastructure.
- Lead architectures for distributed training, fine-tuning, distillation, evaluation, and high-scale CPU/GPU inference.
- Lead architectures for content acquisition, media ingestion, and signal processing.
- Improve efficiency across data loading, distributed execution, GPU kernels and memory, compilation, quantization, scheduling, and capacity.
- Build reliable, observable platforms with strong quality guarantees and training/serving consistency.
- Partner with Ads and Core AI/ML teams to productionize features and models safely at Pinterest scale.
- Drive cross-organizational architecture decisions, migrations, and operational standards; mentor senior engineers and raise the engineering bar.
- Partner closely with Content, Shopping catalog, and GenAI teams to improve Pinterest content ecosystem.
- Use AI-assisted development and analysis to accelerate prototyping, performance diagnosis, and validation while maintaining rigorous correctness and data safeguards.
Requirements
- A track record of setting technical strategy and delivering company-wide infrastructure initiatives in ambiguous environments.
- Deep expertise in distributed ML systems, including production experience with both large-scale training and online inference.
- Strong GPU performance knowledge, such as profiling, distributed execution, kernel and memory optimization, compilation, or quantization.
- Experience with AI/ML modeling, recommender systems, Ads ranking, retrieval, feature platforms, or similarly demanding ML workloads.
- Experience with content acquisition, e.g., crawler, content understanding, NRT data processing.
- Experience with search and recommendation systems, ads serving systems.
- Strong systems programming and design skills in C++, Java, or Python.
- High ownership and sound judgment in reliability, security, cost, and operational excellence.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and critically evaluate AI-assisted work, with accountability for correctness, quality, and sensitive data.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.
We Offer
- Competitive salary range: $285,452-$449,541 USD
- Equity eligibility
- Comprehensive benefits package
About the Company
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
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.
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