Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Bidding & Pacing

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: San Francisco, CAPalo Alto, CASeattle, WA
Salary: $222,716–$389,753 / yr
Posted: 25 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $237k

This role $306k

$160k $414k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 90% of similar roles. Most pay $212,443–$260,866 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $306k versus about $237k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual discovery and inspiration platform where people find ideas for home, style, recipes, and more. It serves hundreds of millions of users worldwide through its image and video pinboard product.

Pinterest currently has 76 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $177,185–$339,078 across 70 roles with salary data.

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View all roles at Pinterest

At a glance

TL;DR · Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Bidding & Pacing

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The Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Bidding & Pacing joins the team to develop data-driven techniques for ads delivery and advertiser ROI. This role involves designing target ROAS, automatic bidding, and pacing algorithms while exploring bid landscapes to maximize revenue. You will collaborate with product and sales teams to implement bidding strategies for new ad products, conduct A/B experiments for algorithm improvements, and identify budgeting opportunities. The position requires expertise in ads delivery, machine learning, and bid landscapes. Candidates should possess skills in using AI coding assistants like Cursor, Copilot, and Codex, alongside LLM-powered productivity tools for SQL exploration and experiment analysis. The work focuses on solving complex problems within the ads marketplace to optimize automatic bidding for clicks, conversions, and GMV.

What does a Machine Learning Engineer earn in California?

Median $235750 from 200 postings across 34 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Machine Learning Ads Delivery Automatic Bidding SQL LLM Cursor Copilot Codex Statistics Data Exploration

What you'll do

Design target ROAS and automatic bidding and pacing algorithms for ads.
Explore bid landscapes to maximize revenue and advertiser value.
Design and implement bidding strategies for new ad products with product and sales teams.
Conduct A/B experiments to improve bidding algorithm performance.
Identify and capitalize on bidding and budgeting opportunities across different teams.
Use AI tools to accelerate development, debugging, testing, and refactoring workflows.
Use LLM-powered tools for documentation search, experiment analysis, and SQL data exploration.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
6+ years of industry experience in ads delivery, automatic bidding/pacing, target ROAS bidding, ads marketplace/utility, or machine learning.
Proven Staff-level technical leadership as an individual contributor to drive technical direction and cross-team alignment.
Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve workflow speed and quality, with a track record of validating and stress-testing AI-assisted outputs.
Experience with Cursor, Copilot, Codex, or similar AI coding assistants for development, debugging, testing, and refactoring.
Familiarity with LLM-powered productivity tools for documentation search, experiment analysis, SQL/data exploration, and engineering workflow acceleration.
Direct experience specifically with bidding or pacing (preferred).
Must be within a commutable distance of the San Francisco, Palo Alto, or Seattle offices.

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