---
title: 'Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Acceleration) at Perplexity'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-software-engineer-acceleration-perplexity-san-601n30mk47ah'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-06'
---

# Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Acceleration) at Perplexity

- **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $250k–$405k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-08-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/f45ba174-7e99-4743-9d19-6e4d3e196458/application

**Skills:** Python, Rust, TypeScript, Go, CUDA, Infrastructure engineering, Platform engineering, Developer acceleration

> Join the Acceleration team to leverage frontier AI tools and agents to improve product delivery, infrastructure, and developer experience. This hands-on role involves building prototypes and production systems to maximize company velocity.

## Job description

## ABOUT PERPLEXITY AI

Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine built to serve the world’s curiosity with fast, trustworthy answers grounded in the live web and backed by clear citations. It combines multiple leading models with real-time search to synthesize up-to-date, source-linked responses instead of traditional search results. On top of this foundation, Perplexity is rolling out Computer, a general-purpose AI worker that can use software like a human to research, build, and execute end-to-end workflows for users.

## ABOUT THE ROLE

Perplexity is seeking creative, AI-pilled engineers to join our Acceleration team. Our company is reshaping the way people navigate the internet and the wider world. The Acceleration team's mandate is to continually up-level the way our company and our teams operate, to deliver order-of-magnitude improvements in product and user experience.

Just as Perplexity is heralding an agentic future for the internet, you will ensure that our company makes the best use of AI tools and agents to multiply the leverage of our lean, mission-focused teams. Today, Perplexity uses AI tools across everything we do, from frontend and backend engineering to applied AI research and business operations. Tomorrow’s AI technology will be even more capable, and the Acceleration team will lead both software and process engineering to harness AI so that the company can deliver at maximum velocity.

The ideal candidate will possess sound technical judgment forged in the trenches of internet-scale companies, paired with voracious use of today’s most advanced AI tools/models and a capacious imagination to rethink how work gets done in the leading companies of tomorrow. They should thrive in a hybrid role that marries facets of AI product development, infrastructure/platform engineering, developer experience, and more.

## KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- Identify, prioritize, and execute on the highest-potential opportunities to accelerate Perplexity’s delivery cadence with frontier AI capabilities.
- Develop empathy for the nuances of our technical and business teams’ work across disciplines and verticals, toward collaborating with them to harness AI in new ways.
- Make our codebases, systems, and knowledge stores legible to AI.
- Help the company triangulate toward the optimal point on the quality-velocity Pareto frontier, while shifting that frontier outward with AI tools and agents.
- Keep abreast of new AI tools/models and make maximally effective use of them in your own work, setting an example across the company and inspiring others to do the same.
- Help the company make high-conviction bets on specific technologies in situations where indecision is a comfortable and tempting default.
- Work with engineering leadership, recruiting, and others to ensure we instill an AI-forward culture and select for those who will thrive in such an environment.

Note: this is an extremely technical and hands-on role. Strong vision and creativity is necessary but not sufficient for success. You will be expected to build both prototypes and production systems, as well as to reengineer our codebases, infrastructure, processes, and anything else that must evolve to realize this vision.

## QUALIFICATIONS

- 5 to 15+ years of industry experience, ideally with a substantial portion focused on infrastructure/platform engineering or developer acceleration in environments featuring significant technical complexity.
- Daily use of AI models/tools, along with strong intuition on their jagged frontiers.
- Proficiency with Python, along with experience and/or desire to learn more about Rust, TypeScript, Go, and other languages.
- Strong understanding of (and empathy for) the work of technical staff across disciplines, along with an enthusiasm to learn about the work of business and operations teams.
- Broad working knowledge of the typical stacks used by AI product & applied research companies. (For example: you don’t need to have experience hand-rolling CUDA kernels, but you should know what CUDA is and when/where/why it’s used.)
- An obsession with improving the legibility of (and reducing brittleness in) both software and human-orchestrated processes.
- Experience navigating tricky exploration-exploitation tradeoffs, balancing the need to ship today with the need to build capacity for tomorrow.

If you’re excited about this role, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn’t match every qualification listed above.

## 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/)

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