Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Applied AI)

About the Position

Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Applied AI)

Perplexity is looking for an Applied AI Engineer to design, build, and iterate on cutting-edge agents powering our core experience in Perplexity Computer. Working in this mission-critical team, you will develop frontier context layer applications - fulfilling the curiosity of millions of users across the globe.

Location

San Francisco, California; Palo Alto, California; New York City, New York

Employment Type

Full-time

Compensation

• $220K – $405K • Offers Equity

U.S. Benefits

Full-time U.S. employees enjoy a comprehensive benefits program including equity, health, dental, vision, retirement, fitness, commuter, and dependent care accounts, and more.

International Benefits

Full-time employees outside the U.S. enjoy a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region of residence.

USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions. International salaries are set based on the local market. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Responsibilities

• Apply state-of-the-art ML and LLM techniques to solve problems spanning:
  • Personalization (LLM memory, context summarization, retrieval, and ranking)
  • Contextual recommendations and Monetization applications
  • Build frontier agent capabilities on top of Perplexity Computer
• Build auto research harness for both offline and online techniques, designing experiments and metrics that provide deep insight into quality and impact.
• Own the entire model lifecycle from research to production: data analysis, modeling, evaluation, offline/online A/B testing, and iterative improvement and build autonomous harness for agent squad to explore different problem spaces.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineers, PMs, data scientists, and designers to ensure our AI drives meaningful product improvements.
• Stay at the forefront of ML/AI innovation by evaluating and incorporating emerging research and algorithms into the product lifecycle.

Requirements

• 5+ years experience building and shipping robust AI products for large-scale, user-facing or data-driven products.
• Strong software engineering skills (Python, production-quality codebases, collaborative development) and experience using agentic coding tools for large-scale parallel developments.
• In-depth experience with the full AI lifecycle: data analysis, rigorous evaluation, and ongoing monitoring/improvement.
• Proven collaborator and communicator; excels in high-velocity, cross-functional teams.
• Curious, driven by end-user/product impact, and passionate about advancing the state of applied ML and AI.
• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Nice to Have

• Experience with LLM context engineering or harness engineering.
• Experience in mid-training or post-training frontier open-source models.
• Experience in large-scale user-centric and content-centric personalization challenges (user modeling, retrieval, content ranking, etc).

We Offer

• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive benefits program
• Equity
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI projects
• Collaborative and innovative work environment

About the Company

Perplexity is at the forefront of AI-driven search technology, dedicated to providing users with the most accurate and relevant information. Our team is passionate about advancing the state of applied ML and AI, and we are looking for individuals who share this passion to join us in our mission.