Ruben Ortega, a Seattle tech veteran who has led engineering teams at Amazon, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Google and Nordstrom, has been tapped to lead the Seattle engineering office of Pinterest, the company announced today.
Ortega has previously served as vice president of technology at Nordstrom; engineering director at Google; CTO and VP of A9.com; director of Mechanical Turk at Amazon; and CTO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
At Pinterest’s first satellite engineering office, he will focus on ads and ranking, among other areas, with plans to grow to more than 30 people over the next year, the company said.
In August, an invite-only recruiting event was held at the Seattle WeWork building where Pinterest engineers discussed some of the technology challenges the company is taking on.
“Pinterest is one of the most exciting companies in technology today,” Ortega said in a news release. “It has a unique and massive dataset that’s growing every day as people save and discover creative ideas. I’ve never seen a better opportunity to build innovative products while working in a collaborative and inclusive culture. Every conversation I’ve had with leadership, teammates and people who use the product has highlighted that the opportunity to do amazing things here is just beginning.”
Tim Kendall, president of Pinterest, called Ortega an expert in building and scaling search and e-commerce teams and technology.
“Ruben’s vast experience and leadership are welcomed as Pinterest engineers build a personalized recommendations engine with 75 billion Pins and counting,” Kendall said.
Ortega will report to Li Fan, who was recently announced as Pinterest’s head of engineering.
