Sr. Software Engineer, Backend

Pinterest Pinterest · Consumer · San Francisco, CA · Engineering, Product and Design (L2)

Backend engineer role at Pinterest focused on building Pinner-facing features and large-scale distributed systems. The role emphasizes leveraging AI tools for faster execution, information synthesis, and improving workflow quality, while also requiring critical evaluation of AI-assisted work and high integrity.

What you'd actually do

  1. Build out the backend for Pinner-facing features to power the future of inspiration on Pinterest
  2. Partner with design, product, and backend teams to build end-to-end functionality
  3. Design, develop, and operate large scale, distributed systems and networks
  4. Leverage AI to seek faster execution (i.e. draft, prototype, outline) and explore alternative options (i.e. iterate, compare approaches)
  5. Leverage AI to synthesize information (summarize, distill themes) and automate repeatable tasks (documentation, reporting, QA checks)

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field or equivalent experience
  • 4+ years of industry backend development experience, building consumer or business facing products
  • Proficiency in common backend tech stacks for online service, storage, caching and data processing
  • Proficiency in building GraphQL APIs and converting REST to GraphQL
  • Experience in Python, Java, C++, or Go or another language and a willingness to learn
  • 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 (e.g., testing, source-checking, data validation, peer review)
  • High integrity and ownership: you protect sensitive data, avoid over-reliance on AI, and remain accountable for final decisions and deliverables

Nice to have

  • Passion for working on a Platform team; experience owning large projects
  • Self-motivated and a desire to improve the lives of other developers / internal developer productivity
  • Experience in following best practices in writing reliable and maintainable code that may be used by many other engineers
  • Ability to keep up-to-date with new technologies to understand what should be incorporated
  • Strong collaboration and communication skills
  • Experience building & operating large scale distributed systems and/or networks. Bonus points if you enjoy deploying and operating large scale workloads on a public cloud footprint

What the JD emphasized

  • 4+ years of industry backend development experience
  • Experience building & operating large scale distributed systems and/or networks
  • Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and quality in your day-to-day workflow
  • Strong track record of critical evaluation and verification of AI-assisted work