Staff Technical Program Manager, Data Engineering

Pinterest • San Francisco, CA

1d • $123,684 - $254,644 • Remote

About The Position

Pinterest’s Data Engineering organization builds and operates the data platforms that power its products, including batch and streaming pipelines, data lake storage and table formats, workflow orchestration, and analytics platforms. The organization is undertaking a multi-year modernization effort that includes streaming-first ingestion using CDC, Kafka, and Flink; moving to open table formats such as Iceberg; consolidating workflow platforms; and retiring legacy systems.

The Staff Technical Program Manager will own the strategy and execution of a multi-year portfolio of data platform modernization programs, working with engineering leaders and teams across organizations. The role will establish portfolio metrics, governance, and reporting; lead a data infrastructure efficiency portfolio; influence senior leadership on technical tradeoffs and investments; and build scalable program management practices. The position also uses GenAI to improve program execution and workflows while following applicable AI governance, safety, and compliance expectations.

The role may be situated anywhere in the United States and requires in-office collaboration 1–2 times every six months. Relocation assistance is not available.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of TPM experience leading complex, cross-functional technical programs, including strategic multi-organization programs or portfolios within large-scale data platforms, streaming systems, or data infrastructure modernization.
• Advanced understanding of large-scale data platforms, including batch and streaming pipelines, table formats, storage layers, and workflow orchestrators, and ability to anticipate technical risk and influence architecture and roadmap decisions.
• Track record of defining program metrics and targets, building forecasting and savings models, and using data to drive investment decisions.
• Track record of influencing senior engineering and business leadership in high-visibility settings, driving consensus, and delivering difficult messages when needed.
• Ability to lead through ambiguity across all levels of leadership and make high-quality decisions with incomplete information.
• Track record of mentoring TPMs or engineers and building mechanisms that others adopt.
• Experience with workflow design, AI fluency, and data and insights, including turning repeatable program work into durable, low-toil mechanisms and using GenAI to improve decision-making.
• Experience operating within AI governance expectations, including risk assessment, data handling, model and output validation, auditability, and traceability, and identifying where AI use is inappropriate or needs additional controls.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with streaming systems such as Kafka or Flink, open table formats such as Iceberg, or large-scale storage migrations.
• Experience using GenAI through strong prompting, vibe coding lightweight scripts or tools, dashboards, data analysis, and agents where appropriate.

Responsibilities

• Own the strategy and execution of a multi-year portfolio of data platform modernization programs spanning ingestion, table format migrations, workflow consolidation, and legacy system deprecation.
• Lead migrations across multiple organizations and producer and consumer teams; anticipate technical failure points, resolve technical uncertainties with engineering, and address cross-organizational priority conflicts.
• Define portfolio metrics, governance, and reporting mechanisms that provide engineering, Platforms leadership, and Finance with current information on progress, validated savings, risk, and decisions.
• Own a data infrastructure efficiency portfolio, including savings strategy and forecasting, and validate results with team-level DRIs, Finance, and InfraGov.
• Influence senior leadership, including VP and executive-staff stakeholders, with recommendations on technical tradeoffs, investment, and sequencing, and drive consensus across organizations.
• Mentor TPMs and engineering DRIs, and develop program management best practices, tools, and methodologies that scale across the Platforms organization.
• Use GenAI as a default operating model for EP PgM execution, including AI-assisted program artifacts and AI-first mechanisms for intake triage, status synthesis, action and decision extraction, and risk and dependency tracking.
• Prototype data-driven decision-support and process-simplification solutions, such as dashboards, data analysis, workflow helpers, and internal tools, using AI coding assistants.
• Follow Pinterest AI guidance for risk, governance, and safety-by-design; handle sensitive data appropriately, validate AI-generated outputs, document assumptions and limitations, and ensure workflows meet applicable policy and compliance expectations before broad adoption.

What This Job Offers

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