Member of Technical Staff (Offensive Security Engineer)

Perplexity; California (MO); On-site; USD 220,000 - 405,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a hands-on Offensive Security Engineer to lead red team operations and adversarial assessments across cloud, web, mobile, and AI systems. You will work with engineering teams to remediate real vulnerabilities and strengthen defenses.

Responsibilities include simulated attacks, tooling development, and threat modeling. This role emphasizes practical impact, cross-functional collaboration, and staying ahead of evolving threats in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in offensive security, red teaming, or penetration testing.
• Experience with cloud security (AWS/GCP/Azure) or web/API security.
• Strong scripting skills in Python, Go, or similar.
• Proven ability to discover vulnerabilities in production.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute red team and purple team engagements across cloud, endpoints, and apps.
• Conduct continuous penetration testing of web apps, APIs, mobile clients, and internal services.
• Assess AI/ML attack surfaces including prompt injection and model exfiltration.
• Develop and maintain custom tooling, exploits, and automation for security testing.
• Perform open-scope adversary simulations testing detection and response with the defense team.
• Drive threat modeling sessions with engineering to identify and prioritize attack vectors.
• Deliver actionable findings to technical and executive audiences and validate remediations.
• Contribute to CI/CD security, supply chain integrity, and secrets management.

Skills

Python

Go

Communication

Tools

Burp Suite

Cobalt Strike

Sliver

Mythic

Metasploit

BloodHound

Nuclei

Job description

Perplexity is seeking a highly skilled, experienced and hands‑on Offensive Security Engineer to join our dynamic security team, taking an adversarial approach to hardening Perplexity's infrastructure, applications, and AI systems. You’ll plan and execute red team operations, penetration tests, and attack simulations across our cloud infrastructure, web and mobile applications, AI/ML pipeline, and corporate environment—finding real vulnerabilities before adversaries do and working directly with engineering teams to drive remediation.

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute red team and purple team engagements simulating advanced threat actors across cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes), endpoints, and application surfaces


• Conduct continuous penetration testing of web applications, APIs, mobile clients, browser extensions, cloud infrastructure, and internal services


• Assess AI/ML-specific attack surfaces including prompt injection, model exfiltration, agent abuse, tool‑use exploitation, and MCP security boundaries


• Develop and maintain custom offensive tooling, exploits, and automation to improve the efficiency and coverage of security testing


• Perform open‑scope adversary simulations that test detection and response capabilities end to end, collaborating closely with the defensive security team


• Drive threat modeling sessions with engineering teams to identify and prioritize attack vectors in new features and architectures


• Deliver clear, actionable findings to both technical and executive audiences; partner with engineering to validate remediations


• Contribute to the security of CI/CD pipelines, supply chain integrity, and secrets management through offensive assessment


• Stay current on emerging attack techniques, vulnerability research, and adversary tradecraft; bring external perspective into Perplexity's security strategy

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands‑on experience in offensive security, red teaming, or penetration testing


• Deep technical expertise in at least two of: cloud security (AWS/GCP/Azure), web/API application security, Kubernetes and container security, macOS/Linux endpoint security, network penetration testing, or CI/CD pipeline security


• Track record of discovering impactful vulnerabilities or developing novel attack techniques in production environments


• Strong programming and scripting skills in Python, Go, or similar languages; comfortable writing custom tooling and exploits


• Experience with industry‑standard offensive tools (Burp Suite, Cobalt Strike / Sliver / Mythic, Metasploit, BloodHound, nuclei, etc.) and ability to operate beyond them


• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to translate complex technical findings into clear risk narratives


• Experience assessing AI/ML systems, LLM applications, or agentic workflows for security vulnerabilities


• Bonus: Published security research, conference talks (DEF CON, Black Hat, BSides), CVE credits, or meaningful bug bounty contributions

Compensation Range: $220K - $405K