Staff Software Engineer, Ads Agent Infra
Pinterest is hiring a Staff Software Engineer, Ads Agent Infra in San Francisco, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Pinterest.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- The posting allows some remote work.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include Claude, LangGraph and AI agents.
- Level lists 167 other open roles at Pinterest.
- The role was posted in the last few days.
AI in this role
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.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Ads Agent Infrastructure team, you'll build and scale the foundation powering Pinterest's stateful AI agents across monetization and advertiser platforms. You'll drive the technical direction for distributed agent architectures, memory services and execution engines that enable engineering teams across Pinterest to deploy resilient agentic workflows.
What you’ll do:
- Architect, build and maintain durable execution platforms supporting crash-recoverable, stateful AI agent workflows.
- Design standardized Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, SDKs and agent runtime interfaces for cross-functional engineering adoption.
- Establish LLM observability, execution tracing, prompt versioning and token-based cost governance across multi-agent systems.
- Drive technical strategy and write foundational design docs that align infrastructure, security and product teams.
- Use AI to accelerate design prototyping, documentation and code iteration while applying judgment and verification to ensure correctness and quality.
- Automate repeatable testing, evaluation and grader pipelines for agent skills and memory services.
What we’re looking for:
- Minimum of 8 years of software engineering experience with expertise in distributed systems, microservices and durable execution engines (e.g., Restate, Temporal or Step Functions).
- Hands-on experience with LLM agent frameworks and runtime internals, including LangGraph, DeepAgents or Claude Agent SDK.
- Expertise in setting technical direction for platform abstractions and driving cross-functional alignment across infrastructure, security and product teams.
- Experience in service identity, multi-tenant security (mTLS, SPIFFE) and LLM observability or cost governance frameworks.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and quality in your day-to-day workflow for relevant outputs.
- Strong track record of critical evaluation and verification of AI-assisted work, including testing, source-checking and peer code review.
- High integrity and ownership: you protect sensitive data, avoid over-reliance on AI and remain accountable for final decisions and deliverables.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, a related field or equivalent 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 every quarter and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from the following office: San Francisco or Palo Alto Office.
#LI-HYBRID
#LI-KK6
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$208,454—$364,795 USDOur Commitment to Inclusion:
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. By submitting this application, I certify that all information submitted in my application and throughout the hiring process is true, accurate, and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that any false statement, omission, or misrepresentation may disqualify me from employment consideration or result in termination if discovered after hire.How we rate this
Staff Software Engineer, Ads Agent Infra at Pinterest rates 88 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical software engineer figure when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- Walk me through how you've used Claude in your day-to-day work.
- What are the limits of LangGraph that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
- How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
- Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents, Claude, and LangGraph. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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