Staff Software Engineer, ML Serving Platform

About Pinterest:

Millions of people across the world come to Pinterest to find new ideas every day. It’s where they get inspiration, dream about new possibilities and plan for what matters most. Our mission is to help those people find their inspiration and create a life they love. In your role, you’ll be challenged to take on work that upholds this mission and pushes Pinterest forward. You’ll grow as a person and leader in your field, all the while helping Pinners make their lives better in the positive corner of the internet.

Creating a life you love also means finding a career that celebrates the unique perspectives and experiences that you bring. As you read through the expectations of the position, consider how your skills and experiences may complement the responsibilities of the role. We encourage you to think through your relevant and transferable skills from prior experiences.

Our new progressive work model is called PinFlex, a term that’s uniquely Pinterest to describe our flexible approach to living and working. Visit our PinFlex *landing page to learn more. *

The ML Platform team delivers essential tools and infrastructure utilized by hundreds of ML engineers across Pinterest, powering crucial functions such as recommendations, ads, visual search, growth/notifications, and trust and safety. Our primary objectives are to ensure ML systems maintain production-grade quality and enable rapid iteration for modelers.

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join our ML Serving team and spearhead our technical strategy on our ML inference engine. The ML Serving team constructs large-scale online systems and tools for model inference, deployment, monitoring, and feature fetching/logging. As ML workloads grow increasingly large, complex, and interdependent, the efficient use of ML accelerators has become critical to our success. You’ll be part of the ML Platform team in Data Engineering, which aims to ensure healthy and fast ML in all of the 40+ ML use cases across Pinterest ranging from recommender systems, computer vision, LLM and other models.

What you’ll do:

• Architect and develop large-scale, robust, and efficient ML inference engines and serving systems leveraging GPUs and other hardware accelerators
• Formulate and implement strategic roadmaps for ML inference technologies at team and company level
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive innovative ML projects, applying advanced inference optimization techniques
• Engage extensively with ML engineers across Pinterest to understand their technical requirements, address pain points, and create generalized solutions
• Provide technical mentorship and guidance to junior engineers within the team

What we’re looking for:

• Comprehensive understanding of production-scale ML use cases and systems, with a focus on scalability and efficiency
• Hands-on experience in building large-scale ML systems in production environments, preferably with expertise in state-of-the-art ML inference technologies and optimizations
• In-depth knowledge of common ML frameworks and systems, including PyTorch, TensorRT, and vLLM, along with their best practices and internal mechanisms
• Familiarity in GPU programming and the common optimization techniques such as ML compilation and quantization
• Strong programming skills in Python and C++, coupled with a solid grasp of distributed systems principles

Relocation Statement:

• This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.

In-Office Requirement Statement:

• We let the type of work you do guide the collaboration style. That means we're not always working in an office, but we continue to gather for key moments of collaboration and connection.
• This role will need to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times/quarter and therefore can be situated anywhere in the country.

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At Pinterest we believe the workplace should be equitable, inclusive, and inspiring for every employee. In an effort to provide greater transparency, we are sharing the base salary range for this position. The position is also eligible for equity. Final salary is based on a number of factors including location, travel, relevant prior experience, or particular skills and expertise.

Information regarding the culture at Pinterest and benefits available for this position can be found here.

US based applicants only$160,520—$330,146 USD

Our Commitment to Diversity:

Pinterest is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions on the basis of merit. We want to have the best qualified people in every job. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member) or any other consideration made unlawful by applicable federal, state or local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you require a medical or religious accommodation during the job application process, please complete this form for support.