Director of Machine Learning Engineering (Content & User Understanding)

Role overview

Pinterest is hiring a Director of Machine Learning Engineering (Content & User Understanding) to lead the Content and User Understanding ML team. You will set the long-term ML/AI vision and technical strategy, and drive execution for company-wide models and systems that improve how Pinterest understands content and users.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term ML/AI vision and technical strategy for content and user understanding models and systems.
• Lead execution to build and scale ML/AI systems across Pinterest.
• Oversee multiple teams of machine learning and backend engineers/managers.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Data Science leaders to translate foundational ML techniques into measurable business impact.
• Manage, hire, and develop managers and ML/backend engineers.
• Foster a culture of innovation, technical excellence, rigor, and impact.

Requirements

• Proven success as a people leader for complex ML organizations, including managing managers and strong communication/influence across partner teams.
• Deep ML expertise building and operating large-scale ML systems, particularly in recommendation, ads, or search.
• 12+ years of professional experience as a technical leader, with 5+ years in people leadership roles.
• Track record of setting long-term technical vision and delivering top-line business impact.
• Technical degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have / preferred signals

• Expertise in large-scale deep learning, including VLM and LLM approaches.