Mara Lantz

Mara is a language systems architect whose work sits at the intersection of taxonomy, schema design, and ML product infrastructure. Most recently at Pinterest, she spent four years as the content design lead for its Monetization sector. Notable projects include building language systems for AI pipelines (including designing a four-stage pipeline for VLM-generated titles of catalog ads) and a signal-centered taxonomy architecture that served as the backbone for trends.pinterest.com.

She’s a lifelong learner, a painter, a hiker, and a mom to two young kids. The shift into AI-adjacent work has been less of a pivot and more of a surfacing—bringing forward engineering-oriented instincts she’s always had but that lacked a name (or a home) in traditional content design roles.

She writes about that trajectory on her Substack, Heart Off Leash. Mara also has a real passion for mentorship, particularly for systems-oriented content designers ready to imagine the compelling future that awaits them in an AI-native work landscape.