Sr. Manager, Machine Learning Engineering-Applied Research

Pinterest • San Francisco, CA

6d • $227,871 - $469,147 • Hybrid

About The Position

At Pinterest, AI is a powerful partner that augments creativity and amplifies impact. The Applied Science team plays a critical role in Pinterest's mission by developing cutting-edge machine learning solutions that scale across all Pinterest engineering teams. We are seeking a highly technical Engineering Manager with deep expertise in modern recommendation systems to lead and develop a team of machine learning researchers and engineers within the Applied Science team. This role involves balancing immediate business needs with long-term strategic breakthroughs, evolving the technical roadmap in partnership with senior leaders, and driving Pinterest's core mission forward.

Requirements

• 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.
• 3+ years of direct people management experience.
• A track record of delivering high-impact initiatives across multiple product areas.
• Demonstrated ability to influence peers and leadership using data-driven insights.
• Experience mentoring, coaching, and up-leveling software and machine learning engineers.
• A self-propelled learner who stays ahead of industry trends, new tools, and emerging methodologies, with an appetite for building proof-of-concept prototypes.
• The ability to transform vague, ambiguous questions into well-defined projects with clear success metrics that drive business decisions.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to distill complex technical findings for leadership and product teams.
• A strong track record of publications in machine learning, AI, data science, or related technical fields.
• MS/PhD in Computer Science, ML, NLP, Statistics, Information Sciences or related field.

Nice To Haves

• Track record of publishing at top-tier ML/RecSys conferences (KDD, RecSys, NeurIPS, CVPR).
• Experience leveraging modern LLM/Agentic workflows and generative AI capabilities to accelerate engineering productivity and context extraction.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• Successfully transition breakthrough ML research into production-ready systems that directly impact core company metrics.
• Manage, inspire, and develop a talented team of machine learning researchers and engineers specializing in recommendation systems.
• Partner with the team to define their charter, ensuring a strong balance between cutting-edge research and building foundational embeddings that benefit products across the entire company.
• Collaborate with Core Engineering, Ads Engineering, Infrastructure, 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.

Benefits

• Equity
• Base salary range: $227,871—$469,147 USD
• Information regarding the culture at Pinterest and benefits available for this position can be found here.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager