---
title: 'Member of Data Staff (Data Scientist) at Perplexity'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-data-staff-data-scientist-perplexity-san-francisco-jx7f2d9xk7hh'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-18'
---

# Member of Data Staff (Data Scientist) at Perplexity

- **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $175k–$330k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-02-20
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-18
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/d680e788-14d3-43f6-8ce8-5df486ca32d0/application

**Skills:** Python, SQL, dbt, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing, APIs, LLMs, A/B Testing, Pipeline Management

> Build AI-native data workflows, autonomous data agents, and scalable infrastructure to transform how data science is conducted. The role involves optimizing data warehouses for AI readability, automating the data lifecycle, and creating self-healing pipelines to support a growing data team.

## Job description

Perplexity is AI for people who expect more. This role brings that standard to how we understand our users, shape our product, and decide what to build next. We're looking for a data scientist who can turn product questions into clear decisions. You'll work across product, engineering, growth, design, and user research to understand user behavior, define metrics, design experiments, and identify the highest-leverage opportunities for the company. The data team is AI-native by default. We use AI to accelerate analysis, write and review code, explore hypotheses, document data, generate first drafts, and automate recurring workflows. But the core of the role is still judgment: asking the right question, choosing the right metric, designing the right test, and knowing when the answer is strong enough to act on.

## What You'll Do

- Develop product insights - analyze user behavior to inform product roadmap, accelerate adoption, and identify opportunities to improve the user experience.
- Design and analyze experiments - form hypotheses, define success metrics, run A/B tests, interpret results, and turn findings into product recommendations.
- Define the metrics that matter - build the metrics, guardrails, dashboards, and reporting workflows that help teams understand product and company health.
- Partner across functions - work closely with engineering, product, growth, design, and user research to answer ambiguous questions and drive decisions.
- Build reusable data assets - create tables, models, and documentation that make analysis faster, more consistent, and easier for humans and AI systems to use.
- Use AI to scale data science - automate recurring analysis, build AI-assisted workflows, improve documentation, and turn one-off investigations into repeatable systems.
- Tell the story clearly - communicate findings, assumptions, uncertainty, and recommendations in a way that helps teams make decisions.

## What We're Looking For

- 6+ years of experience as a data scientist or closely related role.
- Strong product sense - you understand user behavior, product tradeoffs, and how to connect analysis to decisions.
- SQL expertise - you can navigate a complex data warehouse on your own, reason about grain and joins, and debug data issues when something looks wrong.
- Experimentation depth - you have significant experience designing, running, and analyzing A/B tests.
- AI-native working style - you use LLMs and AI tools to move faster without outsourcing analytical judgment.
- Metrics and dashboard experience - you've built useful reporting in tools such as Omni, Mode, Hex, Looker, or similar, and know how to turn metrics into better product decisions.
- Comfort with ambiguity - you can take an open-ended question, structure it, execute the analysis, and make a clear recommendation.
- End-to-end ownership - you take responsibility for the work from problem definition to stakeholder adoption.

Bonus

- Experience with dbt, data modeling, or analytics engineering.
- Python experience for analysis, automation, or internal tools.
- Experience with Snowflake, especially performance and cost-aware querying.
- Experience combining qualitative user research with quantitative product analysis.
- Experience as one of the first data scientists at an early or growth-stage company.
- ML experience or experience working across multiple product surfaces.

## Why This Role

- Define data science at Perplexity - you'll help set the bar for how an AI-native data science team operates.
- Work on questions with no playbook - AI-native products are too new for established benchmarks. What engagement, retention, and user success look like for AI products that answer questions and get real work done is still an open question, and you'll help define it.
- Use AI where it actually matters - you'll use frontier tools to make analysis faster, more repeatable, and more useful.
- Direct impact - small team, high ownership, and work that shapes product and company direction.

## About Perplexity

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Perplexity builds an AI-powered answer engine that delivers accurate, real-time answers to any question, serving curious minds and professionals who demand precision and speed.
- **Entity Type**: Private (total funding $1.7B across 16 rounds)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-powered search and knowledge retrieval, Software Development
- **Target customers**: B2C (general users), B2B (enterprise API customers), and power users seeking reliable information
- **Mission**: “AI for people who expect more – more accuracy, more agency, more signal, less noise.”

## Products & Services
- **Perplexity AI (Free Tier)**: Real-time conversational search engine that synthesizes web results with citations, accessible via web and mobile app. *Type*: SaaS
- **Perplexity Pro**: Subscription offering enhanced features such as advanced AI models, multimodal search, and increased usage limits. *Type*: SaaS (subscription)
- **Perplexity API Platform**: Enables developers to integrate Perplexity’s search and reasoning capabilities into their own applications. *Type*: API
- **Perplexity Browser Extension**: Brings AI-powered search directly into the browser for quick answers without leaving the page. *Type*: Browser extension

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available in provided sources (prior reports indicate ~$9B valuation as of 2024, but not confirmed in this data set)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $1.7B (16 rounds); annual revenue ~$50M (LinkedIn estimate)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not explicitly listed in provided search results; widely known investors include IVP, NEA, Jeff Bezos, and others (not sourced here)
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 11.3% YoY to 1,152 employees; operates in 54 countries; LinkedIn followers grew 131.8% yearly to >1.6M; active hiring across 48+ open roles including AI Research, Engineering, and Go-to-Market teams

## Competitive Advantages
- **Real-time, cited answers**: Unlike traditional chatbots, Perplexity grounds answers in live web results with transparent sources, building trust and accuracy.
- **Multimodal and agentic capabilities**: Continuously pushes frontier research (e.g., query-aware context compression, agents for knowledge work) that differentiates from generic LLM interfaces.
- **Vertical integration from research to product**: In-house AI research team tackles open problems unique to Perplexity’s scale, enabling fast iteration on novel methods.
- **Strong brand and user base**: Rapid consumer adoption with millions of monthly active users and high engagement.

## Strategic Focus
- **Pushing the frontier of search**: Evolving from retrieval services to code generation, agents, and full autonomy in knowledge work.
- **Expanding enterprise and API revenue**: Growing B2B footprint with API platform and enterprise solutions.
- **Global hiring and office expansion**: Offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York, Austin, Washington D.C., London, Berlin, and Belgrade, with “4 days in office” hybrid model.
- **Investing in AI research**: Dedicated research division (Perplexity Research) exploring reasoning, agents, and systems to redefine how people navigate the internet.

## Why Work Here
- **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.

## Sources
1. [perplexity.ai/hub/careers](https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/careers)
2. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity)
3. [perplexity.ai](https://www.perplexity.ai/)
4. [linkedin.com/company/perplexity-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/perplexity-ai)
5. [research.perplexity.ai](https://research.perplexity.ai/)

## Other roles at Perplexity

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- [Director, Public Policy](https://feeny.ai/job/director-public-policy-perplexity-washington-sav38t03en4h) — Washington, DC
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