Senior Director of Engineering, Pinterest
TwoTwenty, Innovation Lab
$329.6-576.8k
+ Equity
More information about location
Visual bookmarking tool for saving & discovering creative ideas
Posted today
Visual bookmarking tool for saving & discovering creative ideas
1001+ employees
Posted today
$329.6-576.8k
+ Equity
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love.
Role
Who you are
- Proven track record leading engineering orgs (manager-of-managers) that shipped consumer-facing AI/ML products at scale
- Deep technical fluency in at least one of: LLM/generative AI systems, mobile product engineering, or AI-driven experiences — enough to make strategic technical calls and earn credibility with Staff+ engineers
- Experience operating in high-ambiguity, greenfield environments — comfortable making bets without perfect data and pivoting fast on results
- Demonstrated ability to align design, product, and engineering around a shared vision and ship integrated experiences
- Experience scaling a team while protecting speed — knows when to add process and when to guard scrappiness
- Relevant domain experience within visual discovery, search, recommendation systems, and/or taste graphs preferred
- Hands-on experience with agentic AI architectures (tool-use, multi-step reasoning loops)
- Prior experience in a startup environment highly preferred
- Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
What the job involves
- TwoTwenty is Pinterest's innovation lab, building visual-first AI products — assistants, Gen-AI creation tools, and editing experiences — with startup speed at Pinterest scale
- We're looking for a Senior Director of Engineering to lead a team of 10 (7 direct reports across ML engineering, software engineering, data science, and product management), own the technical strategy for TwoTwenty's AI product portfolio, and scale the org from scrappy to enduring without losing what makes it fast
- This role reports to the VP of Product Management, Core, and partners closely with Pinterest's Core Product & Engineering, Advanced Technologies Group, and Trust & Safety teams to ship AI features that reach hundreds of millions of Pinners
- Drive execution of TwoTwenty's 1–3 year technical strategy across visual AI assistants, gen-AI creation tools, and visual editing experiences
- Own the investment portfolio across time horizons — balance near-term shipping velocity against longer-term bets on emerging AI capability
- Set bold OKRs tied to Pinner engagement and adoption; adjust quarterly based on experiment results and market shifts
- Make the final call on technical trade-offs when speed and rigor are in tension
- Serve as the single engineering leader accountable for TwoTwenty's integrated output — aligning mobile, backend, design, and LLM engineering under one product vision
- Build strategic partnerships with core Pinterest teams (Closeup, Search, Assistant) to ship AI features at Pinterest scale on shared infrastructure
- Communicate roadmap and results to senior leadership and executives; secure resources and buy-in for new bets
- Resolve cross-org prioritization conflicts so TwoTwenty's rapid iteration cadence doesn't create friction with platform teams
- Scale TwoTwenty from a small, scrappy team to a high-performing org while preserving its speed and culture — hire senior technical leaders (Staff/Principal) across mobile, backend, and ML
- Structure the org and build succession plans that support multiple concurrent product bets with no single point of failure
- Create an environment that attracts and retains top product-engineering and AI talent, with equitable growth paths across disciplines
- Set and uphold the technical bar for reliability, safety, and scale of agentic AI systems across Pinterest's multi-billion-Pin ecosystem
Our take
Inspiration and ideas can pop into your head at any time, and with the growth of social media and networking, sharing these interests and gaining exposure has never been easier. Pinterest exists to display these moments visually, as a kind of digital pinboard allowing users to save and share digital images which have inspired them.
Pinterest's emphasis on visual discovery has differentiated it from competitors and created a more positive and fulfilling experience for its users. Pinterest in many ways provides a respite from the ceaseless negativity that plagues social media such as Facebook and X, and this is perhaps responsible for its userbase expanding to 600M by late 2025.
With this type of success, Pinterest's future feels full of possibility. Recent industry chatter suggests that OpenAI may be eyeing the platform, which has sparked exciement for some and concern for others. While nothing is confirmed, the discussion highlights just how valuable Pinterest has become. Whether through potential partnerships or continues independent growth, Pinterest is very much going to keep on innovation and growing.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
9% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Bill Ready
(CEO)Prior to joining Pinterest in 2022, Bill was the President of Commerce, Payments & Emerging Markets at Google.
Salary benchmarks
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