---
title: 'Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Data Platform) at Perplexity'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-software-engineer-data-platform-perplexity-san-c8waxqa4p09s'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

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

- **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $220k–$405k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-06-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/2e73bc78-684c-47c5-95df-e9973a10e0b6/application

**Skills:** Python, Go, TypeScript, Kafka, Kinesis, PubSub, Airflow, Dagster, Spark, Flink, Databricks, Snowflake, dbt, Iceberg, Delta Lake, ClickHouse

> Shape the architecture and long-term technical direction of Perplexity’s data ecosystem. Design large-scale batch and streaming pipelines, build self-serve data platforms, and mentor engineers to drive the company's data lifecycle.

## Job description

## About the Role

The Data Platform team owns the end-to-end data lifecycle at Perplexity, from ingestion through processing, storage, and serving, powering product features, analytics, experimentation, AI workloads, and the company’s data lake. The team defines the architecture for batch and streaming systems, the orchestration and observability stack, and a self-serve data platform, while thoughtfully combining platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake with open-source technologies including Spark, Kafka, Flink, Airflow, Dagster, dbt, Iceberg, Delta Lake, and ClickHouse. In this senior/staff role, you will shape architecture, set standards, and drive the long-term technical direction of Perplexity’s data ecosystem.

## Key Responsibilities

- Design and operate large-scale batch and streaming data pipelines that directly power Perplexity product features, AI training and evaluation workflows, analytics, and experimentation.
- Build event-driven and streaming systems (Kafka, Kinesis, PubSub, or similar) for real-time ingestion, transformation, and delivery, alongside batch frameworks for backfills, aggregations, and offline computation.
- Lead the architecture of data orchestration using tools like Airflow or Dagster, owning scheduling, dependency management, retries, SLAs, and end-to-end observability for critical data flows.
- Set and enforce guarantees for data correctness, freshness, lineage, and recoverability, designing systems that handle rapid scale growth, partial failures, and evolving schemas without disrupting AI workloads or product experiences.
- Build self-serve data platforms that let engineers, data scientists, and analysts safely discover data, define contracts, and create and operate their own pipelines with minimal friction.
- Improve developer experience through better abstractions, opinionated paved paths, and standards for data modeling, testing, validation, and deployment, treating the data platform as a product used by many teams.
- Drive architectural decisions across storage, compute, orchestration, and data APIs, partnering closely with product engineering and data science to align the data ecosystem with Perplexity’s roadmap.
- Mentor engineers, review designs, and raise the technical bar for data infrastructure through thoughtful feedback, documentation, and hands-on collaboration.

## Qualifications

- 5+ years (Senior) or 8+ years (Staff) of software engineering experience.
- Strong experience building production data infrastructure systems.
- Hands-on experience with batch and/or streaming data processing at scale.
- Deep familiarity with data orchestration systems (Airflow, Dagster, or similar).
- Proficiency in Python and at least one additional backend language (Go, TypeScript, etc.).
- Strong systems thinking around reliability, latency, cost, and complexity tradeoffs.
- Experience supporting ML/AI workflows, training pipelines, or evaluation systems.
- Familiarity with data quality, lineage, observability, and governance tooling.
- Prior ownership of internal platforms used by many teams.

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/)

## Other roles at Perplexity

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