Member of Technical Staff (Secure Intelligence Institute)

Aptiora; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity's Secure Intelligence Institute (SII) seeks energetic researchers and engineers to advance security and privacy in frontier AI. You will identify threats, develop defenses, and build evaluation benchmarks for shipped AI systems.

Publish findings at top venues, collaborate with security engineers and external researchers, and translate research into concrete security features for Perplexity's platforms.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent research experience in CS/CE with focus on security/privacy.
• Publications in top security conferences (IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, NDSS).
• Deep expertise in security of agentic systems, systems security, web/app security, program analysis, or software security.
• Proficiency in Python; TypeScript/Go/Rust a plus.
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment and translate research into product.
• Clear and concise communication translating attack narratives into actionable insights.

Responsibilities

• Identify and analyze security/privacy threats across AI systems, infrastructure, and user-facing products.
• Develop novel defenses, mitigations, and detection mechanisms for security/privacy in AI-native products.
• Build security evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and datasets to measure defense effectiveness.
• Partner with Security Engineering to translate research into shipped security features and hardened architectures.
• Collaborate with external researchers in SII's network.
• Publish findings at premier venues and contribute to the broader security research community.

Skills

Security research

Privacy research

Academic publishing

Independent researcher

Strong communication

Program analysis

Software security

Agentic systems security

Web security

Python

TypeScript

Go

Rust

Education

PhD in CS/CE or related field

Tools

Python

TypeScript

Go

Rust

Job description

Perplexity is seeking energetic researchers and engineers to join our Secure Intelligence Institute (SII), Perplexity's flagship research center for advancing security, privacy, and trust in frontier intelligence. SII’s goals are to advance frontier AI security research, translate those advances into concrete improvements in Perplexity's systems, and share knowledge and resources that strengthen the broader AI ecosystem.

What you would do

• Identify and analyze security and privacy threats across AI systems, infrastructure, and user-facing products.
• Develop novel defenses, mitigations, and detection mechanisms for security and privacy in AI-native products.
• Build security evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and datasets to measure the effectiveness of different defense mechanisms.
• Partner with Perplexity’s Security Engineering team to translate state of the art research into shipped security features and hardened system architectures.
• Collaborate with top-tier academic and industry researchers in SII's external research network.
• Publish findings at premier venues and contribute to the broader security research community.

What the employer asks for

• Hold a PhD (or equivalent research experience) in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with a primary focus on security and/or privacy.
• Experience publishing at top security conferences (IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, NDSS) demonstrating original, impactful research contributions.
• Deep expertise in one or more of: security of agentic systems, systems security, web and applications security, program analysis, and software security.
• Proficiency in Python (bonus points for TypeScript, Go, and/or Rust).
• Ability to operate with high independence, willing to dive in and take ownership, and comfortable in a fast-paced environment where research directly informs product.
• Clear and concise communcation, translating complex attack narratives into actionable insights for engineering and leadership.

Not stated in the posting

• Work model (remote, hybrid or on-site)
• Required languages

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