Sr. Manager, Machine Learning Engineering-Applied Research

About the Position

Sr. Manager, Machine Learning Engineering-Applied Research

San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, US

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At 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. 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.

We're looking for a highly technical Senior Engineering Manager with a deep understanding of modern recommendation systems to manage, lead, and develop a team of ML researchers and engineers within the Applied Science team. In this role, you will lead the strategy of the Recommendation System innovation team. You will help the team build a balanced portfolio of work that addresses both immediate short-term business impact and long-term strategic breakthroughs in areas like Generative Recommendation System (GenRecSys), Large Sequential Models, and Reinforcement Learning (RL). Partnering closely with executive leadership, product management, and engineering partners, you will evolve our technical roadmap and directly drive Pinterest’s core mission forward.

Responsibilities

• Technical Vision and Execution: Own the technical roadmap and strategic vision for Pinterest’s next-generation recommendation systems. Champion the use of state-of-the-art ML techniques to deliver revolutionary innovations in recommendation technology.
• Team Leadership & People Management: Support, mentor, and grow a world-class team of Applied Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and technical leads. Recruit top talent, foster an inclusive research-to-production culture, and guide career progression.
• Portfolio & Strategy Management: Balance execution across two parallel horizons-delivering near-term measurable metric improvements while sponsoring multi-quarter, high-risk/high-reward AI/ML research initiatives.
• Research to Production: Successfully transition breakthrough ML research into production-ready systems that directly impact core company metrics.
• Cross-functional Partnership: Collaborate seamlessly with Consumer Engineering, Ads Engineering, Platform, Content, and Data Science teams to prototype, build, and scale solutions to complex engineering challenges. Partner with leadership to deepen user understanding and set the strategic direction for our recommendation system roadmap.

Requirements

• Technical Depth: 7+ years of combined post-graduate academic and industry experience applying state-of-the-art ML technologies to real-world problems on web-scale data, alongside 3+ years of direct people management experience.
• Proven Execution: A track record of delivering high-impact initiatives across multiple product areas, with a demonstrated ability to influence peers and leadership using data-driven insights.
• Talent Development: Experience mentoring, coaching, and up-leveling software and machine learning engineers.
• Continuous Learner: A self-propelled learner who stays ahead of industry trends, new tools, and emerging methodologies, with an appetite for building proof-of-concept prototypes.
• Business & Product Acumen: The ability to transform vague, ambiguous questions into well-defined projects with clear success metrics that drive business decisions.
• Communication & Credibility: Excellent communication skills with the ability to distill complex technical findings for leadership and product teams, backed by a strong track record of publications in machine learning, AI, data science, or related technical fields.
• Academic Credentials: MS/PhD in Computer Science, ML, NLP, Statistics, Information Sciences, or related field.

Nice to Have

• Experience managing hybrid teams of research-oriented scientists and production-focused machine learning engineers.
• Track record of publishing at top-tier ML/RecSys conferences (KDD, RecSys, NeurIPS, CVPR).
• Familiarity with generative AI for recommendations (e.g., semantic indexing, LLMs/GenRec architectures) or deep RL for long-term user value optimization.
• Experience leveraging modern LLM/Agentic workflows and generative A

We Offer

• Competitive salary range: $227,871-$469,147 USD
• Equity eligibility
• Opportunity to work in a dynamic, innovative, and inclusive environment

About the Company

At Pinterest, we believe the workplace should be equitable, inclusive, and inspiring for every employee. We are committed to providing greater transparency and sharing the base salary range for this position. 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

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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.