--- title: 'Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Enterprise Knowledge Platform) at Perplexity' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-software-engineer-enterprise-knowledge-platform-bjqs5gzcb3j5' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-08' --- # Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Enterprise Knowledge Platform) at Perplexity - **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $220k–$405k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-06-15 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-08 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/daafcaba-cc39-487a-b941-d7a407753788 ## Job description ## About the Role The Enterprise Knowledge Platform team builds the data and action layer that connects Perplexity's agents to the systems where enterprise work happens. Useful agents need more than access to APIs: they need to discover the right tools, understand an organization's data and terminology, and act reliably within its permissions. This team brings native connectors, MCP servers, and CLI-backed tools into a consistent platform, and builds the marketplace through which customers adopt integrations and partners extend the ecosystem. This is a product and platform engineering role with end-to-end ownership, from designing connector infrastructure and semantic models to shipping the experiences customers use to discover, connect, and activate integrations. You'll build the runtime that executes tool calls, the knowledge layer that makes enterprise context reusable across connectors, and the developer and marketplace foundations that help the ecosystem grow. Working with AI Research and Enterprise teams, you'll turn fragmented systems into reliable, permission-aware capabilities that agents can use to complete real work. The impact is direct: every improvement helps customers put their existing software and knowledge to work through Perplexity. ## Key Responsibilities - Own the connector runtime that registers, hosts, and executes native connectors, hosted MCP servers, and CLI-backed tools through a consistent agent-facing interface. - Build the semantic and knowledge layer, including tool and entity schemas, capability metadata, relationships, organization-specific terminology, and reusable corrections, while preserving provenance and source-system permissions. - Design discovery, search, and recommendation systems that help agents find relevant tools and context and help users and organizations choose integrations that fit their work. - Build the marketplace and activation experience end to end, from browsing and recommendations to installation, configuration, admin enablement, and ongoing adoption. - Make connector execution reliable and observable, with structured results, retries, idempotency, pagination, rate-limit handling, and recovery from partial failures. Own reliability targets, production monitoring, and incident response. - Implement connector authentication, credential isolation, and permission enforcement, partnering with Trust & Governance, Security, and Backend Platform on shared policies and tenant boundaries. - Build the onboarding and publishing path for internal teams and external partners, including schemas, test fixtures, validation, review, and versioning. ## Qualifications - 4+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of owning complex backend systems from design through production operation. - Strong system design skills, including building reliable, scalable platforms that integrate heterogeneous APIs and services with clear security and isolation boundaries. - Strong proficiency in a backend language such as Python, Go, or Rust, and hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS and Kubernetes. - Deep expertise in at least one of the following: - Connector runtimes, API platforms, or MCP servers, including authentication and authorization. - Schema design, semantic modeling, or knowledge systems that capture relationships and organizational context. - Search, ranking, recommendation, or tool discovery systems. - Marketplaces, developer platforms, or enterprise onboarding and activation experiences. - Ability to work across backend infrastructure and customer-facing product experiences, translating complex integration requirements into clear APIs, developer tools, and intuitive workflows. - Sound technical judgment in security-sensitive, distributed systems, balancing credential isolation, permission correctness, and failure behavior with performance, usability, and delivery speed. - A track record of leading ambiguous, cross-team initiatives from architecture through adoption, setting technical direction for shared platforms, and raising engineering quality through mentorship. If you're excited about this role, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every qualification. We value demonstrated impact, deep ownership, and the initiative to turn ambiguity into results. ## 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. 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