Role Overview
Pinterest is hiring a Senior Staff Software Engineer, Merchants. This is a full-time role in San Francisco, CA, US; Palo Alto. Full responsibilities, required qualifications, and the apply link are listed in the description below.
Resume Keywords to Include
Make sure these keywords appear in your resume to improve ATS scoring
Job description
About Pinterest:
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.
Our Merchants organization focuses on onboarding and activation, catalog quality and health, merchant presence (including creator/UGC and trust signals), and ads upsell—helping merchants build healthy catalogs, reach the right audiences, and unlock clear paths to growth.
In this role, you’ll lead high-impact engineering at the intersection of commerce platforms, catalog systems, and AI-native experiences. This includes applying ML, AI-assisted workflows, and GenAI where appropriate to improve metadata quality, merchant tooling, and operational efficiency. You’ll partner closely with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, Data Scientists, and other senior engineers to deliver systems with measurable business and user impact.
What you’ll do:
- Own end-to-end technical delivery for cross-team initiatives—from problem framing and technical strategy through architecture, implementation, rollout, and iteration.
- Shape catalog and integration systems for scale, reliability, and quality, ensuring merchant data is deep, broad, fresh, and actionable across partners, formats, and key signals such as inventory and pricing where relevant.
- Build and evolve ML-, GenAI-, and AI-assisted merchant experiences with strong validation and guardrails—for example, metadata enrichment, gap-filling, and internal tools that improve catalog health without compromising trust.
- Contribute to merchant onboarding and activation systems that span teams, creating streamlined flows, signals, and decisioning pathways that improve approval rates, merchant quality, and time to value.
- Partner where appropriate on organic attribution, merchant insights, and data-driven pathways from organic success to paid products, ensuring strategy is measurable rather than anecdotal.
- Drive technical decisions using clear tradeoffs across revenue, conversion, catalog health, engagement, and Torso success.
- Mentor senior engineers and raise the bar for technical design, engineering quality, and production readiness across the organization.
- Use AI to accelerate your own work—across exploration, drafting, analysis, and synthesis—while maintaining strong judgment, rigorous validation, and accountability for outcomes.
What we’re looking for:
- 10+ years of software engineering experience, including meaningful time as a Staff, Senior Staff, or equivalent-level IC building and operating complex production systems.
- Strong track record in commerce, marketplaces, ads, or other adjacent large-scale domains, including leadership on cross-team technical initiatives.
- Deep experience in systems design, API design, and data-intensive systems, with the ability to navigate tradeoffs in performance, reliability, and scalability.
- Experience building or partnering on ML-, AI-, or GenAI-adjacent systems, with a pragmatic understanding of where these technologies add value and how to deploy them responsibly.
- Catalog, integrations, or merchant platform experience is a strong plus.
- Experience with growth, measurement, funnel optimization, or organic-to-paid ecosystems is a plus.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction without directly owning every implementation detail.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field—or equivalent practical experience.
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 recognize that the ideal environment for work is situational and may differ across departments. What this looks like day-to-day can vary based on the needs of each organization or role.
- This role will need to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times/month, and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices: San Francisco or Palo Alto.
#LI-HYBRID
#LI-CL5
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.
Our Commitment to Inclusion:
About Pinterest

pinterest.com
183 other open roles at Pinterest on TryApplyNow.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I apply for the Senior Staff Software Engineer, Merchants position at Pinterest?
Use the Apply button above to submit your application directly to Pinterest. Most applications take less than 5 minutes if your resume and contact details are ready, and you'll be routed to the employer's official application system to finish.
Where is the Senior Staff Software Engineer, Merchants position at Pinterest located?
This position is based in San Francisco, CA, US; Palo Alto. Pinterest has not indicated remote or hybrid options for this role, so candidates should plan for on-site work.
What does a Senior Staff Software Engineer, Merchants at Pinterest earn?
Pinterest has not disclosed a salary range in this posting. Many employers share specifics later in the interview process; you can also ask during a recruiter screen if compensation transparency is important to you.
When was the Senior Staff Software Engineer, Merchants role at Pinterest posted?
This role was posted on June 4, 2026 (48 days ago). It's still listed as actively hiring; we re-confirm openings against the source system multiple times per day and remove closed roles.
More Jobs at Pinterest
View all →Staff Software Engineer, Capacity Engineering
Staff Product Manager, Connections
Staff Product Manager
Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Computer Vision
Senior Sales Strategy & Operations Manager (12-Month Fixed Term)
AI-powered job search
Get every job scored to your resume
Upload your resume and get jobs ranked, your resume tailored, and employee contacts found automatically.
Get started freeNo credit card to start