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Director, Machine Learning Engineering, Ads Quality

PinterestPalo Alto, CA, US; San Francisco, CA, USEPD Ads and Ads Product
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Salary
$314,580 — $550,515 USD
Job type
Full-time
Experience
Senior · 12+ yrs
Posted
6 Oct 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

This leadership role suits an experienced machine learning professional with a strong background in managing multi-team organizations who wants to direct ads quality modeling in Palo Alto or San Francisco. Pinterest is hiring a Director of Machine Learning Engineering to shape the technical vision and multi-team strategy for Ads Quality modeling.

Role Overview

The Director of Machine Learning Engineering directs a broad portfolio of Ads Quality modeling teams at Pinterest. Located in Palo Alto, CA or San Francisco, CA, this full-time position requires working in the office one to two times per week. The role focuses on engagement, conversion, return on ad spend optimization, ranking, representation learning, and machine learning-powered experimentation.

Key Responsibilities

Establish the technical vision and multi-year strategy for machine learning in Ads Quality, aligning model innovation with business outcomes and marketplace health.
Lead and develop engineering managers, senior technical leaders, and machine-learning engineers across multiple modeling domains.
Formulate a coherent modeling roadmap covering engagement, conversion, ROAS, relevance, ranking, and foundation-model initiatives.
Direct enhancements in model quality, calibration, generalization, cold-start performance, attribution, and robustness.
Direct the evolution of advertising models toward larger architectures such as foundation models, distillation, long-context sequence modeling, and multimodal representations.
Coordinate with product, data science, signals, retrieval, delivery, measurement, core, and infrastructure teams.
Monitor training-serving parity, data quality, privacy, reliability, latency, capacity, and cost efficiency.
Foster a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, inclusion, ownership, and continuous learning.

Requirements

Minimum of 12 years of experience building and deploying machine-learning systems, including leadership of managers and multi-team organizations.
Demonstrated success leading large-scale recommendation, ranking, advertising, search, marketplace, or personalization machine learning teams.
Familiarity with modern deep-learning and recommender-system techniques, including sequence models, embeddings, multimodal models, multi-task learning, foundation models, distillation, and reinforcement learning.
Demonstrated ability to connect modeling objectives and offline metrics to online experiments and business outcomes.
Experience operating production machine learning systems with strict requirements for latency, availability, calibration, privacy, reliability, and cost.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.

Nice to Have

Experience with conversion, value, ROAS, bidding, or other lower-funnel optimization problems.
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Skills and Tools

Deep learning frameworks and techniques
Recommender systems
Sequence models and embeddings
Multimodal and foundation models
Multi-task learning and reinforcement learning
Production machine learning infrastructure

Salary and Benefits

Base salary range of $314,580 to $550,515 USD.
Eligible for equity.

About the Company

Pinterest operates a visual discovery platform where millions of people find ideas and inspiration. The company embraces a flexible working model and focuses on building equitable, inclusive, and inspiring workplaces.

How to Apply

Candidates should apply on the official company careers page.

Skills and tech stack

deep learningrecommender systemssequence modelsembeddingsmultimodal modelsmulti-task learningfoundation modelsdistillationreinforcement learningReinforcement LearningDeep LearningMachine Learning

Questions candidates ask

What is the location of this job?

This position is located in Palo Alto, CA or San Francisco, CA, with an in-office requirement of one to two times per week.

What is the salary range for the Director of Machine Learning Engineering role?

The base salary range is $314,580 to $550,515 USD, and the position is also eligible for equity.

How many years of experience are required?

Candidates must have a minimum of 12 years of experience building and deploying machine-learning systems, including significant experience leading managers and multi-team organizations.

Is relocation assistance provided?

No, this position is not eligible for relocation assistance.

What educational background is needed?

A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience is required, with an advanced degree preferred.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official Pinterest careers page.

Apply on company site