Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Enterprise Knowledge Platform)

Perplexity; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking an experienced Enterprise Platform Engineer to own the connector runtime and build a scalable knowledge layer that makes enterprise data and permissions actionable. You will design and ship end-to-end experiences for discovering, connecting, and activating integrations, with a focus on reliability and security across complex backend systems.

You'll work with AI Research and Enterprise teams to translate diverse enterprise needs into robust APIs, developer tools, and

Qualifications

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, owning complex backend systems from design to production.
• Strong system design skills for reliable, scalable platforms that integrate heterogeneous APIs with clear security/isolation boundaries.
• Proficiency in Python, Go, or Rust and hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS and Kubernetes.
• Deep expertise in at least one: connector runtimes/API platforms/MCP servers or schema/knowledge systems or marketplaces.
• Ability to work across backend and customer-facing product experiences, translating integration requirements into APIs and developer tools.

Responsibilities

• Own the connector runtime that registers, hosts, and executes native connectors, hosted MCP servers, and CLI-backed tools through a consistent agent-facing interface.
• Build the semantic and knowledge layer, including tool and entity schemas, capability metadata, relationships, terminology, and provenance.
• Design discovery, search, and recommendation systems to help agents find relevant tools and contexts and guide integration choices.
• Build the marketplace and activation experience end to end, from browsing to installation and ongoing adoption.
• Make connector execution reliable and observable with retry, idempotency, pagination, rate-limiting, and recovery from partial failures; own reliability targets and incident response.
• Implement connector authentication, credential isolation, and permission enforcement in collaboration with Trust & Governance, Security, and Backend Platform.
• Develop onboarding and publishing paths for internal teams and external partners.

Skills

Backend systems

System design

Security & isolation

API platforms

Tool discovery systems

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Python

Go

Rust

Job description

About the Role

The Enterprise Knowledge Platform team builds the data and action layer that connects Perplexity's agents to the systems where enterprise work happens. Useful agents need more than access to APIs: they need to discover the right tools, understand an organization's data and terminology, and act reliably within its permissions. This team brings native connectors, MCP servers, and CLI-backed tools into a consistent platform, and builds the marketplace through which customers adopt integrations and partners extend the ecosystem.

This is a product and platform engineering role with end-to-end ownership, from designing connector infrastructure and semantic models to shipping the experiences customers use to discover, connect, and activate integrations. You'll build the runtime that executes tool calls, the knowledge layer that makes enterprise context reusable across connectors, and the developer and marketplace foundations that help the ecosystem grow. Working with AI Research and Enterprise teams, you'll turn fragmented systems into reliable, permission-aware capabilities that agents can use to complete real work. The impact is direct: every improvement helps customers put their existing software and knowledge to work through Perplexity.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the connector runtime that registers, hosts, and executes native connectors, hosted MCP servers, and CLI-backed tools through a consistent agent-facing interface.

• Build the semantic and knowledge layer, including tool and entity schemas, capability metadata, relationships, organization-specific terminology, and reusable corrections, while preserving provenance and source-system permissions.

• Design discovery, search, and recommendation systems that help agents find relevant tools and context and help users and organizations choose integrations that fit their work.

• Build the marketplace and activation experience end to end, from browsing and recommendations to installation, configuration, admin enablement, and ongoing adoption.

• Make connector execution reliable and observable, with structured results, retries, idempotency, pagination, rate-limit handling, and recovery from partial failures. Own reliability targets, production monitoring, and incident response.

• Implement connector authentication, credential isolation, and permission enforcement, partnering with Trust & Governance, Security, and Backend Platform on shared policies and tenant boundaries.

• Build the onboarding and publishing path for internal teams and external partners, including schemas, test fixtures, validation, review, and versioning.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of owning complex backend systems from design through production operation.

• Strong system design skills, including building reliable, scalable platforms that integrate heterogeneous APIs and services with clear security and isolation boundaries.

• Strong proficiency in a backend language such as Python, Go, or Rust, and hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS and Kubernetes.

• Deep expertise in at least one of the following:

  • Connector runtimes, API platforms, or MCP servers, including authentication and authorization.

  • Schema design, semantic modeling, or knowledge systems that capture relationships and organizational context.

  • Search, ranking, recommendation, or tool discovery systems.

  • Marketplaces, developer platforms, or enterprise onboarding and activation experiences.

• Ability to work across backend infrastructure and customer-facing product experiences, translating complex integration requirements into clear APIs, developer tools, and intuitive workflows.

• Sound technical judgment in security-sensitive, distributed systems, balancing credential isolation, permission correctness, and failure behavior with performance, usability, and delivery speed.

• A track record of leading ambiguous, cross-team initiatives from architecture through adoption, setting technical direction for shared platforms, and raising engineering quality through mentorship.