Sr. Staff Qualitative Product Researcher, Ads

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 . Pinterest is looking for a Sr. Staff Qualitative Researcher to lead research in our highest-priority ads areas. We are looking for a seasoned researcher who can embed in complex, ambiguous problem spaces, uncover the advertiser and Pinner needs that matter most, and turn them into a clear learning agenda. In this role you’ll bring deep qual and mixed methods experience (as needed) to design, execute and communicate strategic research to senior stakeholders in the Ads org and beyond. You’ll shape strategy by partnering with Product, Design, and Engineering and presenting insights and written POVs directly to senior leadership. You’ll also help us decide where sustained research investment is needed, set direction for large cross-team research efforts, and mentor other researchers to raise the bar for qualitative craft. In this role, you’ll have ownership of a broad problem space, autonomy to set and execute your research agenda, and real influence over the ads roadmap and the holistic Pinner experience. What you’ll do: • Lead high-impact qualitative research in our most strategic ads areas : Embed in one or two high-priority problem spaces, such as Ads Integrity, and own the full research cycle from discovery through execution, delivery, and influence on product decisions. • Uncover and represent complex advertiser and user problems: Identify the deep, ambiguous customer needs that cut across the ads product, and translate them into clear opportunities for the business. • Shape the research agenda: Work with Product, Design, Engineering, Data Science, and quantitative UX Research to scope and prioritize the questions that matter most for the areas you support, and independently identify where research can have the greatest impact. • Choose the right method for the question: Plan, field, and synthesize research using the full range of qualitative methods, and partner with Data Science and quantitative researchers on mixed-methods studies that combine depth with scale. • Influence strategy and roadmap : Partner with PMs and Designers to deliver informed, actionable recommendations, and communicate insights directly to leadership to help shape product direction. Author written POVs and cross-study syntheses that connect findings into a bigger picture. • Assess where sustained research investment is needed: Evaluate whether an area warrants a long-term research presence, and make the case to leadership for where to invest. • Use AI to amplify your craft: . Bring creativity to how you apply AI tools to research workflows and to how you land learnings, making cross-functional collaboration faster and more effe