Senior Editor

Perplexity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a Senior Editor to lead the quality and velocity of everything we publish. You will set the editorial bar for excellence and elevate every writer around you.

If you relish shaping language without being precious about deadlines, and want to build a world-class editorial function from the ground up, this role is for you. You will own end-to-end editorial quality, mentor writers, and ensure our voice remains clear and consistent across channels.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in editing, writing, or editorial leadership with published work.
• Ability to adapt tone and voice for diverse channels and audiences.
• Strong command of developmental editing, copy editing, planning, and production management.
• Proven track record mentoring writers and improving a team's output.
• Excellent learning ability, refined judgment on structure and voice.
• Clear perspective on which writing rules to break and when.
• Comfort with AI tools and integrating them into workflows.
• Passion for telling the truth well through compelling writing.

Responsibilities

• Own editorial quality end to end.
• Reject mediocrity and demand clarity.
• Enforce Perplexity voice and style across all outputs.
• Plan and manage editorial calendar for a fast-moving pipeline.
• Edit at all levels—from vision to line editing and feedback.
• Provide feedback to writers to elevate work.
• Mentor, elevate, and attract strong writers.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to align content goals.

Skills

Editorial leadership

Editing

Copy editing

Content planning

Production management

Mentoring writers

Tone/style adaptability

AI tools familiarity

Grammatical mastery

Narrative/storytelling

Tools

AI tools

Job description

Perplexity is seeking a Senior Editor to lead the quality and velocity of everything we publish. Our content spans a range of audiences, channels, and objectives. You will set the editorial bar for excellence and make every writer around you measurably better.

If you treat a clunky sentence and a sprawling launch narrative as the same kind of craft, take pride in language without being precious about deadlines, and want to build a world-class editorial function from the ground up, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Own editorial quality end to end.
• Reject mediocrity.
• Demand clarity. Ensure accuracy.
• Be Perplexity. Evolve and enforce our voice. Everything we ship should sound like we shipped it.
• Be accountable. Hold objective authority in a sea of subjective opinions.
• Plan and manage the editorial calendar. Run prioritization and production for a fast-moving pipeline in a high-growth environment.
• Edit at every level. Player-coach plus team owner and stadium sponsor. Move fluidly from high-level editorial vision to developmental editing to line-level copy editing. Deliver feedback that makes the writing and the writer better.
• Mentor, elevate, and attract excellent writers. Earn the respect of strong writers by making them stronger.
• Make sense of things. Make sense to people.
• Build the editorial system. Evolve and own the style guides and workflows.
• Work productively across the company. Everyone wants content, and you’re the content.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in editing, writing, or editorial leadership, with a body of published or edited work that demonstrates exceptional command of language.
• High flexibility of tone and mind. You must be able to demonstrate an ability to adapt styles and voices for different channels or audiences.
• High competence throughout the editorial stack: developmental editing, copy editing, content planning, and managing production.
• A demonstrated track record of mentoring writers and improving the quality of a team's output, not just your own.
• Exceptional ability to learn.
• Refined judgment on all matters of structure, argument, and voice
• A proven eye for narrative in messy, ambiguous, or highly technical material.
• Deep familiarity with the rules of grammar, style, and storytelling.
• Enough experience in the bullet above that you have a clear perspective on which rules you intend to break and when.
• Comfort using AI tools and the ability to articulate exactly where and how you incorporate them into your workflows.
• A passion for the truth well-told.

Compensation Range: $210K - $290K