Perplexity

Design Engineer, Growth & Marketing at Perplexity (San Francisco, CA)

Perplexity· San Francisco, CA· $180k–$300k·

Role details

Salary
$180k–$300k
Employment
Full-Time
Equity
Yes

Perplexity at a glance

AI-powered answer engine that returns real-time, cited answers, now expanding into an agentic browser and on-device agents.

Perplexity runs an AI answer engine that searches the live web and returns direct, cited answers instead of a page of links. It has extended that core into an AI browser (Comet), an on-device agent (Computer), a developer API, and vertical tools like patent search.

$1.7B raised · latest: Series E extension · $200M · 2025 (reported $20B valuation) · backed by Accel, IVP, NEA, SoftBank Vision Fund 2

Job description

Perplexity is looking for a Design Engineer to help turn perplexity.com into a real growth engine, not a pile of one-off pages. You'll sit shoulder to shoulder with brand designers, PMMs, growth, and content teams, shipping product launch pages, campaign landing pages, and the components and tooling that let those teams move fast without lowering the bar. This is a hands-on role for someone with real taste, sharp attention to detail, and the speed to turn a Figma file, a Slack thread, or a rough sketch into a polished, shipped page quickly. Tech stack: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Sanity

What you'll do

  • Ship product launch pages and evergreen marketing pages for products like Comet, Computer, Deep Research, Search, and Hub. Own the work from Figma handoff to production.
  • Partner with brand designers to build interactive experiences that make the site feel alive and drive engagement.
  • Maintain and extend our brand design system and component library, keeping Figma and production in sync so brand and creative can scaffold pages with guardrails.
  • Work closely with the paid ads and growth teams to run A/B tests on landing pages, popups, and upsell modules. Read the results, then iterate.
  • Migrate the leftover Framer collections to Sanity, model schemas that non-engineers can actually use, and help ship new content types like changelog, customer stories, and academy pages.
  • Design and unblock yourself when design resources are constrained. You can take a rough direction and turn it into something worth shipping.
  • Improve the tools around the work: CMS workflows, i18n, SEO, experimentation, and internal tooling for marketing self-serve. If a manual process is slowing the team down, you should want to fix it.

What you need

  • 3+ years of experience as a front-end or design engineer, ideally on a marketing or growth site.
  • A portfolio site that shows your previous work on marketing sites and design work.
  • Strong skills in React, CSS, and modern frameworks.
  • Deep understanding of responsive design and design-to-code workflows. You know what the platform can do and you stay current on what's new.
  • Experience maintaining a reusable component library and sweating the design details in code.
  • A real eye for design. You can tell the difference between "almost right" and "actually right," and your work reflects it.
  • Attention to detail that shows up unprompted. The 2px misalignment, the wrong easing curve, the widow at the end of the paragraph.
  • Stellar communication skills and a track record of working effectively in cross-functional teams. You can defend a decision, push back constructively, and explain trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Desire to work in a fast-paced environment, continuously grow, and master your craft.

Nice to have

  • Experience running A/B tests and reading experiments results in a growth context.
  • Knowledge of SEO principles, structured data, and localization workflows.
  • Experience with web animations (GSAP, Motion, Web Animations API), 3D libraries, or interactive storytelling.
  • Experience working with a headless CMS (Sanity, Contentful).
  • Experience building internal tools or AI-assisted workflows that made a marketing or design team faster.

Why work at Perplexity

  • Culture & Environment: “Thoughtful support” culture with emphasis on craftsmanship, ownership, entrepreneurship, scholarship, and partnership. Hybrid schedule (4 days in-office) based on location.
  • Perks: Daily catered meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner in office), office snacks, ride home program, commuter benefits, home office reimbursement, fitness classes, gym memberships.
  • Compensation & Benefits: Competitive salary and equity packages; retirement plans with company match; flexible PTO; holiday shutdown between Christmas and New Year; 12 weeks paid bonding leave; comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Relocation & Visa Support: Relocation assistance and visa/green card sponsorship for eligible roles. Partners with immigration firm to support the process.
  • Engineering Excellence: “Technical assessment for relevant roles”; values hands-on contribution, broad skill sets, and merit-based evaluation. Frequent Tech Talks and exposure to greenfield AI research problems.

Application questions