Senior Director Machine Learning - Ads Engineering
About The Position
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. Job Summary: As the Sr. Director, Machine Learning (Ads Modeling & Marketplace), you will lead the ~130âperson modeling and backend ML organization that powers Pinterest Ads performance. Modeling is the heart of Ads ML at Pinterest: your charter spans the full modeling stack-from signals and feature platforms to retrieval and ranking to auction/marketplace mechanisms-focused on advertiser performance and marketplace health. You will define multiâyear technical strategy, build a multiâhorizon investment portfolio, and scale shared platforms and frameworks that raise velocity and quality across organizations. You will lead through Senior Staff/Principal ICs and Manager of Manager, partnering closely with Ads Product, Serving/Infra, Data Science/Measurement, and Legal/Privacy.
Requirements
- Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or Relevant Field; Masters/PhD highly preferred.
- Proven record leading enterpriseâscale modeling, ranking, and marketplace systems with crossâorg impact.
- Breadth across retrieval, ranking, calibration, embeddings, auction design, and measurement; ability to guide crossâorg architecture and investments.
- Executiveâlevel communication and influence; aligns leaders on highâleverage investments; manages risk at org scale while maintaining iteration velocity.
- Demonstrated success leading and developing Senior Staff/Principal ICs and Managers of Managers; robust succession planning and equitable development systems.
- Systems thinking on reliability, availability, latency, and cost; establishing and improving SLOs across modeling/serving pathways.
Responsibilities
- Set longâterm technical strategy for modeling, ranking, and marketplace; shape companyâlevel metrics and connect them to strategic investments.
- Lead crossâorg flagship initiatives; uphold the technical bar for modeling/serving quality and safety; scale shared tooling and platforms that materially improve velocity, reliability, and cost.
- Establish and improve availability, latency, and cost goals; proactively monitor reliability trends; ensure timely remediations and continuous SLA/SLO improvement.
- Structure and develop the org and leadership bench; recruit and retain top technical leaders; sponsor equitable, orgâwide development systems.
- Align leaders across business functions; communicate strategy, risks, and tradeâoffs in executive forums; enable rapid innovation with strong guardrails.
- Ensure consistent delivery on OKRs and critical initiatives; make businessâlevel tradeâoffs; secure buyâin on highâleverage bets.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Industry
Publishing Industries
Number of Employees
1,001-5,000 employees
