Staff Software Engineer, Big Data Storage

The job

LIVE Employer public job feed (private-sector employer) Source: the employer's public careers feed · Data: listed 2025-12-17

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.

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help build the next generation of Pinterest’s big data storage platform. You’ll work on some of the most exciting big data open source technologies — especially Apache Iceberg — at exabyte scale to power the data infrastructure that helps Pinners discover and do what they love.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll serve as a technical leader and hands-on contributor, designing and building highly scalable storage systems for Pinterest’s data lake. You’ll partner closely with teams across data, ML/AI, analytics, and infrastructure to evolve our storage and metadata management capabilities, enabling efficient, reliable, and governed access to data at massive scale.

What you’ll do:

• Design, implement, and optimize Pinterest’s exabyte-scale data lake storage platform.
• Lead complex technical projects and initiatives for data lake storage and metadata management, driving them from architecture through execution.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and partner teams across the organization to design storage and metadata layer technologies that unlock big data and ML/AI innovations.
• Build storage capabilities that efficiently support large-scale ML/AI workloads, including high-throughput data access, schema evolution, and large-scale column backfills.
• Shape the long-term technical direction for scalable, reliable, and efficient big data storage systems.
• Engage with and contribute to open source communities such as Apache Iceberg, Spark, and Flink to help address Pinterest’s scaling challenges.

What we’re looking for:

• 8+ years of relevant industry experience designing and building large-scale production distributed systems.
• Strong experience designing and maintaining scalable storage, metadata, or data lake infrastructure.
• Experience building storage capabilities for large-scale ML/AI or analytics workloads, including high-throughput data access, schema evolution, and large-scale column backfills.
• Deep knowledge with building distributed systems, data storage systems, and production infrastructure.
• Experience with big data technologies such as Apache Iceberg, Spark, Flink, Presto/Trino, Hive, or similar systems.
• Proficiency in programming languages like Java, Scala, or Python.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and influence architecture across teams.
• Strong collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills, with a drive for technical excellence and innovation.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science, or equivalent experience
  
  

In-Office Requirement Statement:

• We let the type of work you do guide the collaboration style. That means we're not always working in an office, but we continue to gather for key moments of collaboration and connection.
• 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. 

Relocation Statement:

• This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.
  
  

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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:

Explore around this job

Field: Technology Sub-niche: Software engineering All jobs at Pinterest Jobs in California Jobs in Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto city guide California state guide Santa Clara County economy

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About the role

This is a — role in the Technology field (Software engineering) at Pinterest.

We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.

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How to prepare and behave

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• Read the whole description and match your examples to its requirements; use the same words the posting uses where they are true for you.
• Research the employer before the interview: what it does, who its customers are and recent news; prepare two or three questions about the work.
• Arrive early (or log in early for a video call), dress one step above the daily dress code, and test your camera and audio beforehand.
• Answer with short stories: the situation, what you did and the result. Give numbers when you have them and never invent them.
• Be honest about gaps; say what you did to learn and how fast you can close them.
• Ask about the team, the first 90 days, how success is measured and the schedule; do not open with salary and time off.
• When pay comes up, know the market range for the occupation and your lowest acceptable offer before you answer; ask for the full package in writing.
• Send a short thank-you message within a day, mentioning one thing you discussed.
• The listing mentions a remote or flexible location. Confirm with the employer whether remote work applies to your state: taxes, licensing and benefits can depend on where you live.
• Have code, data work or projects you can show, and be ready to think aloud: many technical interviews test how you reason, not only the answer.

Know your rights as a candidate and an employee:

• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: prohibited employment practices
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The city

The job is in Palo Alto, CA. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.

How Palo Alto compares. Among the 145 largest places in California, Palo Alto is #122 by population, #4 for college degrees (#1 = most), #139 for rent (#1 = cheapest), #7 for household income (#1 = highest). Its county, Santa Clara County, is #1 of 58 counties for average pay ($197,043).

The place in numbers

Palo Alto has 67,237 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 0.2% of the population of California. It covers 24 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 2,796 people per square mile. The median age is 43.6, 15% older than the state median (43.6 against 37.9).

Housing

The median gross rent is $3,484 a month (rent plus utilities), 71% above the state median ($3,484 against $2,036). Over a year that is 18.1% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is above $2 million (the ACS reports $2,000,001 as its highest value, so the true median is higher), which is at least 8.7 times the median household income ($231,101); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 54.6% of households own their home, about the same as the state average (54.6% against 55.9%).

Work and pay

The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA metropolitan area has 1,134,970 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $84,050 a year, 65% above the national median ($84,050 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are computer and mathematical (149,970 jobs, median $186,320); management (115,110 jobs, median $210,750); business and financial operations (94,210 jobs, median $125,240). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (3.9 times) and architecture and engineering (2.5 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($210,750) and legal ($195,190). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of Santa Clara County was 4.2%. 62.3% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in Santa Clara County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.

Getting around

Among workers, 44.2% drive alone, 2.0% use public transit, 4.6% walk, 35.4% work from home. 8.2% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 58% below the state average (8.2% against 19.4%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.

People and education

82.3% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 122% above the state share (82.3% against 37.1%). 37.0% of residents were born outside the United States, 37% above the state share (37.0% against 27.0%). The poverty rate is 6.0%, 50% below the state rate (6.0% against 12.0%).

Climate

The warmest month is Aug, averaging 68°F (19.8°C), and the coolest is Jan at 47°F (8.3°C). About 510 mm (20 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; Dec is the wettest month (114 mm) and Jul the driest (0 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.

Nearby cities to compare

Closest cities in this guide: Los Altos Hills (2 miles, similar rent); Los Altos (3 miles, similar rent); Mountain View (4 miles, rent 12% lower); East Palo Alto (5 miles, rent 36% lower). Rent differences are against Palo Alto; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.

Full guide to Palo Alto →California guideAll jobs in Palo Alto

Official links for Palo Alto

• Census Bureau data profile for Palo Alto
• Official website of Santa Clara County: santaclaracounty.gov
• Official state website: ca.gov
• BLS Economy at a Glance: California

These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.

Where to live

CITY Official statistics Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year (via Census Reporter) · Data: ACS 2020–2024

Places within 50 miles (straight line) of Palo Alto, CA that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.

Career paths

We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Technology, where your skills may carry over:

Cybersecurity (713) Data, analytics and AI (3366) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (1040) Product management (836)

Distances

CITY Calculation (straight line) Source: U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer (coordinates) · Data: 2024

How far Palo Alto, CA is from the 20 largest US cities, in straight-line miles (not driving distance). Click a column to sort.

Nearby cities with open jobs (within 120 miles)

The employer

Pinterest is the employer in this listing. See all its open jobs here →

We do not hold headcount or revenue for this employer. Check its careers site and, if it is listed on a stock exchange, its public filings (SEC EDGAR search).

What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

Other open jobs at Pinterest

Similar jobs

Same sub-niche: Software engineering

More jobs in Palo Alto, CA

All Software engineering jobs → · All Technology sub-niches →

FAQ

What is the Staff Software Engineer, Big Data Storage job at Pinterest?

A private-sector role in technology (software engineering) listed 327 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.

Where is this job?

Palo Alto, CA. A remote or flexible location is listed; confirm with the employer which states are accepted.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

Median rent in Palo Alto is $3,484 a month and median household income $231,101 (ACS 2020–2024).

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2025-12-17 (327 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse software engineering jobs in California.

Sources and terms

• Job data: Pinterest careers page public feed (listing dated 2025-12-17). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
• Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
• City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.

AtiveSite is not affiliated with or endorsed by the employer or any government agency, and does not process applications. Verify every detail with the employer before acting.

Sources

• BLS OEWS (wages and employment by occupation, May 2025)
• BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
• BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• BLS JOLTS
• BLS State and Metro Area Employment
• Census Bureau American Community Survey (via Census Reporter)
• BEA GDP by state and Regional Price Parities
• IRS 2026 tax adjustments
• U.S. Department of Labor, minimum wage by state
• Tax Foundation state income tax rates 2026
• USAJOBS
• USCIS
• U.S. Department of State, visas
• NASA POWER climatology
• GeoNames / Census Gazetteer (coordinates)