Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Applied AI)

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

Job summary

Perplexity is looking for an Applied AI Engineer to design, build, and iterate on cutting-edge agents powering our core Perplexity Computer experience. You will collaborate with engineers, PMs, data scientists, and designers to advance ML models, run experiments, and deploy production-ready systems that impact millions of users.

You will own the full AI lifecycle from research to production, applying state-of-the-art techniques, running rigorous experiments, and shipping robust, scalable

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience building and shipping AI products.
• Strong Python and software engineering skills.
• End-to-end experience with data analysis, modeling, evaluation, and deployment of AI systems.
• Excellent collaboration in cross-functional teams.
• Advanced degree or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Apply state-of-the-art ML and LLM techniques across personalization, context summarization, retrieval and ranking.
• Build auto research harness for offline and online experiments with metrics.
• Own the model lifecycle from research to production, including A/B tests and iterative improvement.
• Collaborate with engineers, PMs, data scientists, and designers to drive product improvements.
• Stay at the forefront of ML/AI by evaluating new research and algorithms.

Skills

Python

Production quality code

Agentic tooling

ML lifecycle

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

LLM tooling

Job description

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.

Key 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• 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).

Bonus Points For

• 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).

Compensation Range: $220K - $405K