Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, AI Systems)

Perplexity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a software engineer to evolve the core agent harness powering our flagship answer experience. You will blend strong product judgment with both single- and multi-agent engineering to build the world’s foremost agent for accumulating knowledge and answering society’s most challenging questions.

You will translate user needs and insights into improvements to the agent’s orchestration, context management, performance, and reliability, with a focus on observability and a

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience building and shipping large-scale AI systems.
• Strong software craft with focus on developer experience and future-proof systems.
• Proficiency with Python; bonus for Rust and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes).
• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related fields (or equivalent experience).

Responsibilities

• Evolve the core agent harness powering the flagship answer experience.
• Combine product judgment with single- and multi-agent engineering paradigms.
• Improve orchestration, context management, performance, and reliability of the agent.
• Emphasize observability, evaluation, and developer experience to enable autoresearch.

Skills

Python

Software engineering

Observability

Rust

Cloud (AWS)

Kubernetes

Education

BS/MS/PhD in CS/Engineering or related fields

Job description

About Perplexity AI

In 2026, we launched Computer, the defining product for the new era of agentic AI. We’ve scaled beyond the millions of people using Perplexity every day for research, shopping, investing and curiosity into a new paradigm of using AI to transform knowledge into action.

As an engineer at Perplexity, your role will be to build products and systems that define how AI empowers humans to think, decide and act. You’ll ship fast and work between both product and infrastructure advancements in our technology.

Why Perplexity is different

• Craftsmanship. We build high quality, tasteful products targeting both the AI native and AI curious.

• Ownership. You identify the problem, design the solution and ship it.

• Entrepreneurship. We think like founders, act with urgency, and hustle to deliver for each other and our users.

• Scholarship. Work among highly talented peers, pursuing knowledge and truth, upleveling ourselves, our teams, and our products.

• Partnership. We amplify each others’ strengths, break down silos, and give selflessly to help our colleagues deliver excellence.

About the Role

Perplexity is looking for a software engineer to evolve the core agent harness that powers our flagship answer experience.

You will combine strong product judgment with both single- and multi-agent engineering paradigms to help us build the world’s foremost agent for accumulating knowledge and answering our society’s most challenging questions. You will translate user needs and quantitative insights into improvements to the agent’s orchestration, context management, performance, and reliability.

The ideal candidate understands that reliable agents at global scale require excellent observability, rigorous evaluation, and a developer experience that makes failures easy to reproduce and fix autonomously through methods like autoresearch. The same harness will power the training and evaluation of new models, creating a tight feedback loop between production experiences and model improvement that is central to Perplexity’s mission.

Required Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience building and shipping large-scale AI systems and services with high reliability, availability, and performance.

• Strong software engineering craft, with special care for developer experience and designing future-proof systems that can evolve along with a rapidly advancing AI landscape.

• Proficiency with Python. Bonus if familiar with Rust and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes).

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related fields (or equivalent experience).