People Behind the Product: Meet Ray Han, Director of Product

Hi Ray! Thanks for sitting down with us to share more about your life at Pinterest. You started at the company in 2024, what intrigued you about the opportunity to join the team? 

• Mission - I really liked Pinterest’s mission, “to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love.” I felt like the role I was applying for, leading the search and shopping experience, was a key part of bringing that mission to life. 
• Shopping - People come to the platform for inspiration, and I saw that Pinterest was prioritizing shopping, enhancing the capabilities for users to take action on what they’re saving. Other companies are going the opposite way, where they have the shoppers, but those consumers aren’t going to them for inspiration. I was interested in Pinterest’s unique position at the intersection of discovery and commerce. 
• People - Every conversation I had in the interview process showed that Pinterest employees are kind, ambitious and product-obsessed. Even after I joined, the respect and collaboration people showed each other at Pinterest was great to see. 

You lead the Product team specifically for search and shopping, how would you describe the goals of your team and some of the ways that you contribute to Pinterest’s success? 

My team’s goal is pretty simple to say and hard to do. We want to move users from saving their ideas to “I did it” with as little friction as possible. There are a few ways we work to make that happen. 

1. Pinterest users don’t always come to Pinterest with the right words to describe what they want. With what few words they do give us, we want to show them highly relevant, really inspirational content to guide them on their journey. We don’t want to lose them in the discovery process; our goal is to ensure their inspiration journey is a scenic one that they enjoy along the way. 
2. It’s also equally important to maintain a positive corner of the internet through trust and safety policies. We invest in signals and ways to rank content to improve user safety. 
3. Additionally, we’re investing in ways to help users unlock even more value from Pinterest. You might come to our platform with an interest in sneakers, and then you also find athleisure products as well. We strive to nurture and hone discovery, assisting users with as many things as we can. 

In your opinion, what’s one of the most exciting features you’ve helped launch in your time at the company? 

Last year, we launched a big change to visual search on Pinterest with a goal to make every Pin actionable. For example, let’s say you see an amazing outfit in a Pin; you should be able to look at any object – whether pants or accessories – and make it yours. 

How does your team ensure you keep the Pinterest user experience at the forefront of your work? 

One cultural change across engineering, product and design is, first and foremost, we want to start with the user journey and intent, then we work backwards and discuss what must be true to get there. 

The other thing is that we try to prototype or experiment as fast as we can; that’s been a great change. We want to move fast, test things with real users and get signals about what works and what doesn’t. Pinterest has a nimble culture – we try new ideas and innovative ways to operate to unlock more value. 

What advice would you give to someone who’s hoping to embark on their own career journey here? 

Come in genuinely curious and have strong opinions that are loosely held. At Pinterest, there’s an appetite to experiment and try things. We have an open-minded leadership team that wants us to test ideas and come back with how real users are reacting. There’s a large amount of trust between leaders and product managers, which makes Pinterest a fun place to work. 

Collaboration and building relationships are also really important. There are different teams you need to work with to make things happen, including design, engineering and data science. Lastly, don’t limit yourself. Think about your goals and the best ways to bring those to life.

Any final thoughts that you’d like to leave us with? 

Pinterest has a collaborative culture, and it’s great to see how people are able to ramp up in a space where they might not have industry experience. I’ve never worked in search before, so the fact that I lead the search team makes me excited about the ability to learn while driving impact. I’ve had amazing partners who helped me get started and gave me the trust to lead the product roadmap.