Sr. Staff Technical Program Manager

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.

At Pinterest, AI isn't just a feature, it's a powerful partner that augments our creativity and amplifies our impact. We’re looking for candidates who are excited to be a part of that. 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.

The Ads & Monetization organization sits at the heart of Pinterest’s business, where machine learning, AI, creatives, attribution, reach, and marketplace come together to create value for advertisers and relevant, inspiring experiences for Pinners. Pinterest is at an inflection point with hundreds of millions of users coming to the platform with active commercial intent — making Pinterest uniquely positioned to influence the full purchase journey from inspiration to action. We are building a path of non-linear growth with emerging surfaces, expanding international markets, and foundational investments in relevance, advertiser return on ads spend, measurement, and creative quality. Unlocking that path requires disciplined, technically sophisticated execution across a collaborative, multi-team environment spanning technology, strategy, go-to-market and research.

Responsibilities

• Lead company-level programs within Ads & Monetization — including areas such as Auction & Marketplace, Measurement & Attribution, Formats, and new surfaces — with direct impact on multiple company OKRs.
• Identify opportunities to drive long-term business innovation and differentiation within Ads; anticipate business, technical, and regulatory issues that impact Pinterest’s monetization strategy.
• Influence at the VP level: provide strategic input to leadership decision-making, drive alignment across orgs, and lead through technical credibility and communication — not through a management hierarchy.
• Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Design, and Go-to-Market teams to deliver complex, vague, and strategically important Ads programs.
• Own the metrics and accountability framework for your programs: connect delivery, performance, experimentation, and measurement signals into a clear source of truth for what shipped, what moved the metrics, and why.
• Bring structure and decision velocity to ambiguous, high-stakes work by establishing decision frameworks, surfacing tradeoffs, managing dependencies, and increasing alignment speed across executive and cross-functional teams.
• Exercise technical judgment equivalent to an L16 SWE: evaluate complex technical approaches, anticipate failure modes, sequence risky elements to fail fast, and guide teams in solving complex technical challenges across orgs.
• Embed AI tools into program workflows to accelerate synthesis, planning, reporting, and repeatable workflows, applying appropriate judgment, verification, and privacy guardrails.
• Provide thought leadership and mentorship: share best practices, create reusable tools and methodologies for the broader TPM org, and mentor PgMs and ICs across the company.

Requirements

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in technical program management or related experience leading company-level programs that directly impact business-critical objectives and revenue.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale programs in ads, marketplace systems, machine learning/AI, ranking, recommendation systems, experimentation, measurement, data platforms, or similarly complex technical domains.
• Track record of influencing senior leaders (VP/SVP/estaff) and aligning multiple organizations on programs of notable risk, complexity, and ambiguity.
• Experience contributing to product or technology roadmaps at the company level, translating ambiguous business opportunities into clear priorities, measurable outcomes, and durable execution plans.
• Expertise in building accountability systems across teams without a formal management structure: metric frameworks, roadmap tracking, launch governance, dependency management, and executive-level reporting.
• Technical judgment and communication skills that allow you to guide engineering teams through complex tradeoffs, anticipate risks, and evaluate technical approaches without being the primary designer.
• Demonstrated experience using AI to improve speed and quality in day-to-day program work, with a clear approach to validating accuracy, protecting sensitive data, and maintaining accountability for final decisions.
• BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, or equivalent work experience.

This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. 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.

Pay

US based applicants only. The base salary range for this position is $163,639—$336,903 USD. 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.