Founding the Pinterest Cloud Architecture Team
Impact Summary
Founded and led Pinterest’s Cloud Architecture function, shaping multi-region strategy, IaC standards, and cross-organizational alignment while mentoring the next generation of infrastructure engineers.
Role
Senior Staff Cloud Systems Engineer – Technical Lead
Timeline
2021–Present
Scale
- Org-wide influence
- 12–14 direct mentees
- Multi-team architectural alignment
Links
Problem
Pinterest had strong infrastructure engineering teams, but lacked a coherent architectural function that could bridge long-term strategic direction with the day-to-day realities of distributed systems. Critical initiatives—multi-region design, networking modernization, IaC standards—required a north star, not scattered tribal knowledge. Without a unified architectural backbone, teams risked duplicated effort, inconsistent patterns, and slow adoption of best practices.
Approach
I founded the Pinterest Cloud Architecture Team to establish the connective tissue between infrastructure strategy, engineering execution, and cross-org technical clarity.
The first step was defining a team charter and pillars, covering multi-region expansion, networking evolution, infrastructure services substrate, IaC safety, and cloud governance. This charter created organizational alignment, giving leadership a clear structure for understanding where architectural decisions lived.
Next, I built the team—mentoring 12–14 engineers directly and influencing many others across SRE, Security, Infra Provisioning, and Data Engineering. Through workshops, code reviews, and internal education, I increased engineering literacy in cloud networking, IaC, multi-account design, and AWS infrastructure fundamentals.
I also led the creation of Terraform and CI/CD guardrails, ensuring deployments became safer, more predictable, and consistent across accounts. These guardrails helped unify operational behavior for the entire infrastructure layer.
Outcomes
- Established a durable Cloud Architecture function
- Improved organizational clarity around infrastructure strategy
- Established IaC standards and Terraform CI/CD guardrails
- Strengthened cloud networking and multi-region literacy across engineering
- Raised the technical maturity of SRE, Security, and Infra Provisioning teams
- Created repeatable architectural patterns adopted by multiple orgs
Key Contributions
- Defined team charter + strategic pillars
- Mentored 12–14 direct reports + cross-team influence
- Authored IaC best practices and Terraform safety patterns
- Delivered org-wide cloud networking and IaC workshops
- Bridged infra leadership, product teams, and platform engineering