Member of Technical Staff (Secure Intelligence Institute)
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, TypeScript, Rust, AI Agents. Listed education preference: a Ph.D. or equivalent. Compensation is listed at $220,000–$405,000 per year.
- Role
- Staff Engineer
- Function
- software engineering
- Level
- staff
- Track
- Tech leadership
- Employment
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Education
- Ph.D. preferred
- Department
- AI
- Posted
- Mar 21, 2026
More roles at Perplexity
Job description
from Perplexity careersPerplexity is seeking energetic researchers and engineers to join our Secure Intelligence Institute (SII), Perplexity's flagship research center for advancing security, privacy, and trust in frontier intelligence. SII’s goals are to advance frontier AI security research, translate those advances into concrete improvements in Perplexity's systems, and share knowledge and resources that strengthen the broader AI ecosystem.
As a member of SII, you'll conduct original and impactful research on improving the security and privacy of frontier intelligence systems. Your goal will be to conduct research that is not only rigorous in theory, but practical enough to improve the systems people rely on every day. This work will be informed by the realities of operating general-purpose AI systems used by millions of people and thousands of enterprises, and you'll be expected to translate both your own research and advances from the broader community to practical improvements that protect and defend Perplexity's users.
Responsibilities
Develop threat models for emerging attack surfaces in AI-native products, including browser, search, and autonomous agents.
Identify and analyze security and privacy threats across AI systems, infrastructure, and user-facing products.
Develop novel defenses, mitigations, and detection mechanisms for security and privacy in AI-native products.
Build security evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and datasets to measure the effectiveness of different defense mechanisms.
This is an excerpt. Read the full job description on Perplexity careers →