Jobs / United States / Pinterest INC
Staff Machine Learning Engineer
Pinterest INC · 🇺🇸 San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, US · Remote
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 218 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 53 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Pinterest INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles28 certified filings for “Machine Learning Engineer II” (Data Scientists) in CA: $174k–$225k, median $174k. Most were filed at wage level II (54%) — 2 lottery entries, ≈31% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
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Sponsor Radar — Pinterest INC
The US Department of Labor certified 218 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 53 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Pinterest INC →
About the 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 . About Pinterest Millions of people across the world come to Pinterest to find new ideas every day. It’s where they get inspiration, dream about new possibilities and plan for what matters most. Our mission is to help those people find their inspiration and create a life they love. As a Pinterest employee, you’ll be challenged to take on work that upholds this mission and pushes Pinterest forward. You’ll grow as a person and leader in your field, all the while helping users make their lives better in the positive corner of the internet. Our new progressive work model is called PinFlex, a term that’s uniquely Pinterest to describe our flexible approach to living and working. Visit our PinFlex landing page to learn more. Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Applied Science As part of Pinterest Labs , you'll work on tackling new challenges in machine learning and artificial intelligence along with a world-class team of research scientists and machine learning engineers. In this role, you will play a central part in transforming how content is discovered on Pinterest by driving the research, architecture, scale and production deployment of Generative Recommendation System (GenRec) and Reinforcement Learning solutions. You will conduct research that directly applies across Pinterest engineering teams, engage in external collaborations and mentoring, and perform research in the intersection of recommendation systems, LLMs, VLMs, and reinforcement learning. What you’ll do: • Contribute to cutting-edge AI/ML research that can be applied to Pinterest challenges across Ads, Discovery, Growth, and Search. • Identify, scope, architect, build, and deliver full, novel ML solutions from 0 to 1 at scale. Identify timelines and obtain resources needed. • Identify new and upcoming research opportunities by interacting with external and internal collaborators. Own long-term research strategy and plans to expand the impact of Applied Science. • Act as a technical leader in the applied AI space. p artner with Product, Engineering, and Data Science to translate complex engineering solutions into product impact. What we’re looking for: • MS/PhD in Computer Science, or equivalent industry experience • Minimum 6 years of relevant industry experience • Hands-on experience with large-scale recommendation system and reinforcement learning applications; experience with LLM/VLM post-training is a plus • Technical leadership and experience in driving ambiguous research problems into production deliverables • Publications at top ML conferences (e.g. KDD, NeurIPS, RecSys, etc.) • Cross-functional collaborator and strong communicator