Member of Technical Staff (AI Researcher)
Perplexity · San Francisco, CA · AI
About this role
Perplexity is hiring a staff-level Staff Engineer in the software engineering function based in San Francisco, CA. The posting calls out experience with Python, CUDA, PyTorch, LLMs and roughly 2–6 years of relevant work. Compensation is listed at $220,000–$485,000 per year.
- Role
- Staff Engineer
- Function
- software engineering
- Level
- staff
- Track
- Tech leadership
- Employment
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Experience
- 2–6 years
- Department
- AI
- Posted
- Apr 13, 2026
More roles at Perplexity
Job description
from Perplexity careersPerplexity is seeking top-tier AI Research Scientists and Engineers to advance our AI products and capabilities. We're building the future of AI-powered search and agent experiences through our Sonar models, Deep Research Agent, Comet Agent, and Search products. Join us in creating SOTA experiences that handle hundreds of millions of queries and continue to scale rapidly.
Team Structure
Depending on your interests and expertise, you'll work on one of three specialized teams:
1. Core Research Team (Horizontal)
Focus on generating and improving base models that power all our products. This team works on foundational model capabilities, post-training techniques, building RL infra and infrastructure that benefits the entire organization.
2. Agent Products Team (Vertical)
Concentrate on fine-tuning and optimizing models for our Deep Research Agent and Labs/Canvas products. This team bridges research and product, ensuring our agent capabilities deliver exceptional user experiences.
3. Comet Agent Team (Vertical)
Dedicated to developing and enhancing our Comet Agent product. This specialized team focuses on the unique requirements and optimizations needed for Comet's specific use cases.
Responsibilities
Research & Development
Post-train SOTA LLMs using the latest supervised and reinforcement learning techniques (SFT/DPO/GRPO)
Leverage our rich query/answer dataset to scale model performance across Sonar, Deep Research, Comet, and Search products
This is an excerpt. Read the full job description on Perplexity careers →