According to reports, Pinterest has fired two engineers who created a software tool to identify which workers lost their jobs in a recent round of cuts and then shared the information.
The digital pinboard business announced significant job cuts earlier this month, with the chief executive, Bill Reidy, telling staff he was “doubling down on its AI-forward approach”, according to a LinkedIn post by a former employee.
Pinterest, which is based in San Francisco and has offices in London, said the cuts would affect about 15% of its workforce, or about 700 people, but did not specify which teams or staff members would be affected.
Two engineers at the company then wrote code to identify the fired employees.
A Pinterest spokesperson said: “Two engineers improperly wrote custom scripts that accessed confidential company information to identify the locations and names of all terminated employees and then shared it more widely. This was a clear violation of Pinterest policy and the privacy of their former colleagues.”
It’s unclear whether the engineers, who have not been named, shared the information with colleagues, or with people outside Pinterest.
The BBC, citing an unnamed source, reported that the script – a set of commands written within existing software to automate a task or change its function – was intended to be an internal tool for workers to communicate.
The source, whom the BBC said was “familiar with the removals”, said the code created an alert indicating which staff names were being removed or deactivated.
Pinterest is investing heavily in AI to create more personalized content for its users and automated tools for marketers. But the company’s shares have fallen more than 20% this year as investors assess the threat from more advanced AI platforms.
“Healthy debate and disagreement is expected, that’s how we make our decisions,” Reidy said at a company-wide meeting, according to CNBC.
The chief executive said Pinterest was facing a “critical moment” and that if employees were “working against the direction of the company” and disagreeing with its mission, they should consider jobs elsewhere, CNBC reported.
It comes amid a wave of job cuts in the tech sector, as businesses become increasingly reliant on AI. Last week, Amazon announced it would cut 16,000 roles worldwide, its second round of redundancies in three months.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said it would cut more than 1,000 jobs from its Reality Labs division to redirect resources to AI wearables and phone features. Meanwhile, design software maker Autodesk announced plans to cut about 1,000 jobs this month.
