Director, Machine Learning Engineering – Content & User Understanding

We are looking for a Director of Machine Learning to lead the Content and User Understanding team at Pinterest. This leader will define the long‑term ML / AI vision, technical strategy and drive execution for building the company-wide content and user understanding ML models and systems that power Pinterest’s critical product surfaces across homefeed, related, search, shopping, growth and ads.

You will oversee multiple teams of machine learning and backend engineers and managers. You’ll combine deep technical expertise with strong people leadership and product instincts to deliver industry‑leading ML solutions, including driving state of art innovation in VLM (Vision‑Language Models) and LLM (Large Language Models)-based approaches.

What you’ll do:

• Lead ML Strategy and Innovation for Foundational Content and User Understanding
  • Set the multi-year vision, technical strategy, and investment roadmap for content and user understanding ML models and systems.
  • Drive innovation of cutting-edge AI approaches, including large scale sequence modeling, VLM and LLM.
• Lead Execution and Deployment Across Pinterest to Deliver Topline Impact
  • Ensure the foundational content and user understanding models and systems are effective and scalable to power downstream applications across Pinterest surfaces: homefeed, related, search, shopping, growth and ads.
  • Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Data Science leaders in partner teams to translate foundational ML techniques into significant business impact. Form strong collaboration across teams and build trust.
• Build and Scale a World-Class ML Organization
  • Manage, hire, and develop a team of high-performing managers and ML / Backend engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, technical excellence, rigor, and impact.
• Drive ML Influence Across Pinterest
  • Act as the primary technical spokesperson for Content and User Understanding to executive leadership and external partners.
  • Represent the team's needs and priorities in company-wide planning and resource allocation to ensure long-term, strategic ML investment.

What we’re looking for:

• 12+ years of professional experience as a technical leader, including 5+ years in people leadership roles (managing managers and senior ICs).
• Technical degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Deep ML expertise: building and operating large-scale ML systems in recommendation, ads or search.
• Expertise in large scale deep learning, VLM and LLM approaches.
• Track record to set long term technical vision and lead teams to deliver top line business impacts.
• Seasoned People Leader: Proven success leading complex ML organizations, managing managers, and exceptional communication and influence skills to drive close collaboration with multiple partner teams.
  
  

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 every 6 months 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.

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