Pinterest expanding Toronto presence with new engineering hub

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Pinterest has revealed plans to expand its Toronto presence with 50 hires and an engineering hub in the city. The engineering location will be Pinterest’s first such international hub as the company looks to implement new tech into its core platform.

“The quality of engineering talent in Toronto is some of the best in the world and is an ideal match to Pinterest’s unique engineering needs.”

The 50 new hires will span engineering, sales, insights, and marketing roles. The company is looking for front-end, full-stack, and machine learning engineers to build Pinterest’s global products and shopping experience. The Toronto office will grow to house half of Pinterest’s shopping experience engineering team.

Pinterest is the latest in a throng of international firms that are setting up engineering hubs in Toronto.

Recently, Twitter, another US social media giant, announced plans to launch an engineering hub of its own in Canada and hire at least 24 engineers in Toronto. Uber, HSBC, Punchh, Xero, and BFS Capital have also specifically looked to create similar kinds of hubs in the city.

Pinterest said its decision to open the hub in Toronto was based on the city’s strong pool of engineering talent, particularly from local institutions such as the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto.

“When we look at where many of Pinterest’s engineers trained, and a large number studied at Canadian universities, which have specialized in machine learning training,” said Rahim Daya, Pinterest’s head of international product and Toronto engineering tech lead. “The quality of engineering talent in Toronto is some of the best in the world and is an ideal match to Pinterest’s unique engineering needs.”

Pinterest opened its Toronto office in 2018. That office represents the image-sharing social media company’s first in Canada. Pinterest has not specified whether the new engineering hub will exist within that office or will be a standalone hub.

RELATED: Uber launching engineering hub in Toronto as part of $200 million investment

Over the last few years, Pinterest has focused on innovating its platform. The company is currently developing computer vision, recommendations, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality, among other tech features to position itself as a “must-go” shopping destination.

Pinterest will likely face hiring competition from Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify, which plans to hire 2,021 technical roles this year.

“Scaling our Toronto office is a top priority for us this year, including the new addition of an engineering team, so we can continue to serve Pinners and grow our sales coverage for all types of Canadian advertisers,” said Erin Elofson, head of Canada and Australia at Pinterest.

“We believe the only way we can build a product for people all over the world is if we have truly global perspectives,” Elofson added. “This is the mindset driving the expansion of our engineering to more geographies, including to Toronto.”

Image source Unsplash. Photo by Sandro Schuh.

Isabelle Kirkwood

Isabelle Kirkwood

Isabelle is a Vancouver-based writer with 5+ years of experience in communications and journalism and a lifelong passion for telling stories. For over two years, she has reported on all sides of the Canadian startup ecosystem, from landmark venture deals to public policy, telling the stories of the founders putting Canadian tech on the map.

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