Staff Technical Program Manager, ML/AI Platform

Pinterest•San Francisco, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

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. At Pinterest, AI isn't just a feature, it's a powerful partner that augments our creativity and amplifies our impact, and we’re looking for candidates who are excited to be a part of that. To get a complete picture of your experience and abilities, we’ll explore your foundational skills and how you collaborate with AI. Through our interview process, what matters most is that you can always explain your approach, showing us not just what you know, but how you think. You can read more about our AI interview philosophy and how we use AI in our recruiting process here. Pinterest Technical Program Managers are proactive owners with technical expertise. They are aligned to the highest level company priorities to support successful delivery of programs within their teams. The Platform T/PgM Team is responsible for overall program governance in Infrastructure, Infra Finance, Data Engineering and Security, as well as Compliance and managing our cloud budget. As a Staff Technical Program Manager focusing on cross-engineering special projects, you will identify, scope, champion, and land key strategic projects important to advancing Pinterest’s platform and underpinning.

Requirements

Experienced Technical Program Manager — 8+ years of TPM or related experience, with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent. With a proven track record of leading and delivering complex, multi-year initiatives spanning multiple engineering teams and organizations.
AI-First Execution Mindset — Demonstrated ability to use GenAI to meaningfully accelerate program planning, operations, and stakeholder communication; starting from AI-generated drafts and applying strong judgment to validate, refine, and drive decisions rather than defaulting to manual, high-toil approaches.
Workflow Design & AI Fluency — Experience turning repeatable program work into durable, low-toil mechanisms; including strong prompting, vibe coding lightweight scripts and tools, building dashboards, and leveraging agents to improve decision-making and operational throughput.
Safety-by-Design AI Governance — Comfortable operating within AI governance expectations, including risk assessment, sensitive data handling, model output validation, and auditability, and proactively identifying where AI use is not appropriate or requires additional controls.
ML/AI & Systems Domain Knowledge — Working understanding of Machine Learning, GenAI, LLM serving and inference, AI Agent architectures, DevOps, and systems engineering principles; sufficient to engage credibly with technical teams, drive meaningful tradeoffs, and identify cross-system risks.
Strategic Vision & Entrepreneurial Leadership — Strong ability to analyze organizational context, anticipate future scenarios, and shape program roadmaps aligned to company-level strategy and OKRs, with an entrepreneurial spirit that thrives in ambiguity and builds programs from the ground up.
Executive Influence & Thought Leadership — Demonstrated success influencing senior and executive leadership, representing program interests at the highest levels, providing well-reasoned input to critical decisions, and building trusted relationships across disciplines and organizations without relying on formal authority.
Analytical Problem-Solving & Risk Mitigation — Strong analytical and decision-making skills with a track record of using data, innovative approaches, and structured frameworks to navigate complexity, resolve ambiguity, and mitigate program risks proactively.
Operational Excellence at Scale — Demonstrated experience creating and driving efficient, scalable processes and best practices that increase organizational agility, with a focus on institutionalizing repeatable mechanisms that outlast individual programs and enable teams to execute with greater consistency.
Exceptional Communication & Collaboration — Outstanding written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills; able to distill nuanced, technical concepts for diverse audiences, build consensus across competing perspectives, and foster an inclusive, collaborative environment that reflects Pinterest's commitment to diversity and belonging.

Responsibilities

Lead Strategic ML/AI Platform Programs — Identify, scope, champion, and deliver high-impact, cross-engineering initiatives critical to advancing Pinterest's ML/AI Platform, GenAI infrastructure, and Agent Platform; owning outcomes from ambiguous opportunity through measurable execution.
Operate with an AI-First Execution Mindset — Use GenAI as the default operating model for program execution; producing AI-assisted first drafts of core program artifacts, modernizing high-toil workflows (e.g., intake triage, status synthesis, risk and dependency tracking, action/decision extraction), and synthesizing signals to proactively surface risks, tradeoffs, and escalation paths.
Prototype AI-Augmented Tools & Workflows — Leverage AI coding assistants to build lightweight solutions that improve decision-making and reduce friction — including dashboards, data analysis, process helpers, and internal tooling; using a "vibe coding" approach to move fast and validate value early.
Apply Safety-by-Design AI Governance — Follow Pinterest's AI guidance for risk, governance, and compliance; appropriately handling sensitive data, validating AI-generated outputs, documenting assumptions and limitations, and ensuring AI-assisted workflows meet applicable policy and safety expectations before broad adoption.
Drive Complex Technical Decisions Across Teams — Partner closely with technical domain owners across MLP, Agent Platform (Helix), Core Infra, and Ads to proactively identify, frame, and resolve complex cross-team technical decisions; sequencing risky elements to fail fast and reduce downstream program exposure.
Translate Strategy into Execution — Convert strategic platform priorities into structured, milestone-driven execution plans; operating at both breadth (big picture vision) and depth (driving granular details with engineering teams) to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Shape Planning & Influence Roadmaps — Serve as a thought leader to cross-functional stakeholders during annual and quarterly planning cycles; influencing product and platform roadmap decisions with data-informed perspectives and a deep understanding of organizational priorities and technical tradeoffs.
Build Scalable Processes & Best Practices — Define, institutionalize, and continuously improve program management processes, frameworks, and tooling; elevating organizational execution capability and enabling teams to operate with greater agility, consistency, and efficiency at scale.
Drive Cross-Functional Alignment & Communication — Build transparent, adaptive communication channels across Engineering, ML Research, Data Science, Product, Security, and Legal; ensuring stakeholders at all levels; from ICs to executives, have timely, accurate visibility into priorities, status, risks, and decisions.
Own Program Outcomes End-to-End — Take full accountability for the success of high-impact programs, ensuring measurable delivery through rigorous planning, proactive risk mitigation, and relentless follow-through; representing program interests at the highest levels of the organization.