Member of Technical Staff (General Software Engineer, Infrastructure)

Perplexity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 405,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity in San Francisco is seeking an senior infrastructure engineer to own cross-cutting systems spanning compute, storage, networking, and data, from architecture to production operation.

You will design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity’s workloads, drive shared abstractions, and lead programs that raise the engineering bar across teams with a focus on latency, reliability, and cost-efficiency.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production backend, platform, or distributed systems.
• Track record of owning complex production systems end to end and delivering sustained technical impact.
• Ability to set technical direction, lead through influence, and raise engineering standards through reviews and mentorship.
• Strong programming skills in Python or other backend languages (Go, Rust, C++, Java).
• Experience across at least two infrastructure domains such as cloud platforms, Kubernetes, storage, databases, or data systems.

Responsibilities

• Own cross-cutting infrastructure problems spanning compute, storage, networking, data, deployment, and reliability.
• Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure across consumer, AI, and enterprise workloads.
• Identify gaps between platforms and build shared abstractions, automation, and tooling.
• Improve system performance, availability, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
• Debug production issues across service and infrastructure boundaries and implement durable solutions.
• Set technical direction for complex systems and lead high-impact programs across teams.

Skills

Backend development

Technical leadership

Python

Distributed systems

Cloud & Kubernetes

Job description

About The Role

The Infrastructure team builds and operates the foundational systems behind Perplexity’s products. At Perplexity, infrastructure sits on the critical path of every answer, supporting real-time search, retrieval, model serving, and agent workloads where latency, reliability, and rapid iteration directly shape the user experience. This role is for strong infrastructure engineers whose experience spans multiple domains and who are energized by cross-cutting problems that do not fit neatly within a single platform team.

About The Role

You do not need to be a specialist in every area. Scope ranges from owning major production systems to setting technical direction across teams, leading complex infrastructure programs, and shaping infrastructure strategy across the organization. If a specialized Cloud Infrastructure, Storage Platform, Backend Platform, Data Platform, Connector Platform, or AI Acceleration role clearly matches your expertise and interests, apply directly to it. If your experience spans several infrastructure domains or you are most energized by cross-cutting systems problems, apply here. Submit one application, and we will consider you across the Infrastructure organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Own cross-cutting infrastructure problems that span compute, storage, networking, data, deployment, and reliability, including eliminating bottlenecks across retrieval and serving paths, building shared abstractions across deployment environments, and resolving failure modes that cross platform boundaries.
• Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity’s consumer, AI, and enterprise workloads, owning systems from architecture through production operation.
• Identify gaps between existing platforms and build shared abstractions, automation, and tooling that make infrastructure easier and safer to use.
• Improve system performance, availability, scalability, and cost-efficiency across online request traffic and background workloads.
• Debug complex production issues across service and infrastructure boundaries, then turn the findings into durable architectural improvements.
• Set technical direction for complex infrastructure systems, lead high-impact programs across teams, and establish durable technical standards through collaboration with infrastructure, product, AI, and security partners.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production backend, platform, or distributed systems.
• A track record of owning complex production systems end to end and delivering sustained technical impact across teams.
• Demonstrated ability to set technical direction, lead through influence, and raise the engineering bar through architecture, design reviews, and mentorship.
• Strong software engineering skills in Python or other systems or backend languages such as Go, Rust, C++, or Java.
• Meaningful experience across at least two infrastructure domains, such as cloud platforms, distributed systems, Kubernetes, storage, databases, networking, data systems, developer infrastructure, or production reliability.
• Ability to develop depth quickly in unfamiliar systems, reason across software and infrastructure layers, and drive production incidents from diagnosis through durable resolution.

If you’re excited about this role, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn’t match every qualification listed above.

Compensation Range: $220K - $405K