Staff Infra Engineer: Cross-Platform Systems & Reliability

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

Job summary

Perplexity in San Francisco is seeking an senior infrastructure engineer to own cross-cutting systems spanning compute, storage, networking, and data, from architecture to production operation.

You will design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity’s workloads, drive shared abstractions, and lead programs that raise the engineering bar across teams with a focus on latency, reliability, and cost-efficiency.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production backend, platform, or distributed systems.
• Track record of owning complex production systems end to end and delivering sustained technical impact.
• Ability to set technical direction, lead through influence, and raise engineering standards through reviews and mentorship.
• Strong programming skills in Python or other backend languages (Go, Rust, C++, Java).
• Experience across at least two infrastructure domains such as cloud platforms, Kubernetes, storage, databases, or data systems.

Responsibilities

• Own cross-cutting infrastructure problems spanning compute, storage, networking, data, deployment, and reliability.
• Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure across consumer, AI, and enterprise workloads.
• Identify gaps between platforms and build shared abstractions, automation, and tooling.
• Improve system performance, availability, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
• Debug production issues across service and infrastructure boundaries and implement durable solutions.
• Set technical direction for complex systems and lead high-impact programs across teams.

Skills

Backend development

Technical leadership

Python

Distributed systems

Cloud & Kubernetes

Job description

Perplexity in San Francisco is seeking an senior infrastructure engineer to own cross-cutting systems spanning compute, storage, networking, and data, from architecture to production operation.

You will design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity’s workloads, drive shared abstractions, and lead programs that raise the engineering bar across teams with a focus on latency, reliability, and cost-efficiency.