
Senior
Build the ML systems behind real-time CTV ad bidding at Pinterest's tvScientific
Own the machine learning powering tvScientific's Connected TV ad-buying platform — real-time bidding, campaign optimization, and incrementality measurement across Hulu, Pluto TV, Disney+, HBO Max, and hundreds of FAST channels. This is production ML in adtech, not research: you'll write prod Python that makes millions of bid decisions per second and prove advertisers' CTV spend actually drove business outcomes.
Practice this interview
Free · a live voice mock calibrated to this exact role
What this interview tests
- Real-time bidding system design at scale
- Production ML deployment and monitoring
- Causal inference / incrementality measurement
- Statistics and experiment design fundamentals
- Adtech/CTV/RTB domain knowledge
- Technical leadership and mentoring on a distributed team
Common question themes
Design a real-time ad-bidding pipeline handling millions of decisions/sec
How would you measure incrementality/causal lift of a CTV campaign
When do you pick a simpler model over a complex one, and how do you evaluate that tradeoff
How do you monitor a production pricing/bidding model for drift
Describe using AI coding assistants or LLM tools in your actual dev workflow
How do you mentor engineers and communicate decisions on a distributed team
How candidates describe it
Real Sr. Software Engineer interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.
Google · L3 Software EngineerOfferGoogle L3 software engineer interview: phone screen, four coding rounds, and the Googleyness round
A candidate with two years of experience went from recruiter outreach to offer over about four months. The onsite was four 45-minute coding rounds — three of them featuring binary trees — and one round turned into a 25-minute chain of follow-ups about approximating an optimal solution at scale.
Interviewed June 2020 · Bangalore, IN
Google · L4 Software EngineerNo offerGoogle L4 Software Engineer Interview: Eight Rounds, No Offer
An L4 Software Engineer candidate went through two phone screens, three onsite rounds, a culture conversation, and a team-matching call with a Google hiring manager, then watched the process stall for about a month and a half over a tightened experience requirement before an added extended round ended without an offer.
Interviewed February 2024 · Not specified
Google · L5 Software EngineerNo offerGoogle L5 software engineer interview: phone screening, three onsite rounds, system design, and a late rejection
A candidate interviewing for an L5 role went through a phone screening, three onsite coding rounds, a mobile system design round, and a Googleyness and Leadership round. Two of the four technical rounds went poorly by the candidate's own assessment, and after roughly two months of silence the recruiter reported that the role had been closed.
Interviewed January 2023 · Not specified
All Pinterest Sr. Software Engineer interviews
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