Scale Engineer

Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Infrastructure)

Infrastructure Engineer · Senior · Full Time

San FranciscoUSD 220k – 405k1mo ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Member of Technical Staff (Infrastructure Engineer) at Perplexity AI is a mission-critical role focused on designing, building, and operating foundational distributed systems that power real-time search, retrieval, model serving, and agent workloads. This position is ideal for experienced infrastructure engineers with expertise spanning multiple domains (cloud platforms, Kubernetes, storage, databases, networking, data systems) who thrive on cross-cutting problems that directly impact system latency, reliability, and user experience. The role combines hands-on infrastructure engineering with technical leadership, including production system ownership, architectural direction-setting, and collaboration across infrastructure, product, AI, and security teams.

Responsibilities

  • Own Cross-Cutting Infrastructure Systems: Take full ownership of complex infrastructure problems spanning compute, storage, networking, data, deployment, and reliability. Eliminate critical bottlenecks across retrieval and serving paths, build shared abstractions across deployment environments, and resolve failure modes that cross platform boundaries. This requires deep systems thinking and the ability to trace issues across multiple infrastructure layers.
  • Design and Operate Distributed Systems: Design, build, and operate production-grade distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity's consumer, AI, and enterprise workloads. Own systems from initial architecture and design through ongoing production operation, monitoring, and optimization. Ensure systems meet stringent requirements for latency, availability, and scalability at scale.
  • Build Infrastructure Abstractions and Tooling: Identify gaps between existing infrastructure platforms and develop shared abstractions, automation, and developer-friendly tooling that make infrastructure safer and easier to use across teams. Reduce cognitive load on platform users and decrease infrastructure-related incidents through thoughtful abstraction design.
  • Optimize System Performance and Cost: Improve system performance, availability, scalability, and cost-efficiency across both online request traffic and background workloads. Conduct thorough capacity planning and resource utilization analysis to identify optimization opportunities that deliver measurable business impact and reduce infrastructure spend.
  • Debug and Resolve Production Incidents: Drive investigation and resolution of complex production incidents that span service and infrastructure boundaries. Transform incident findings into durable architectural improvements and preventative measures that enhance overall system resilience and prevent recurrence of similar issues.
  • Set Technical Direction and Lead Programs: Establish technical direction for complex infrastructure systems and lead high-impact infrastructure programs across multiple teams. Raise the engineering bar through architecture reviews, design documentation, mentorship, and collaboration with infrastructure, product, AI, and security partners to drive sustained technical excellence.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Backend Systems Programming

    Strong software engineering skills in Python or systems languages such as Go, Rust, C++, or Java. Proficiency in at least one compiled language preferred for infrastructure work where performance and resource efficiency are critical.

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Deep understanding of distributed systems principles including consistency models, fault tolerance, replication strategies, and consensus algorithms. Ability to design systems for high availability, scalability, and performance across geographically distributed infrastructure.

  • Cloud Infrastructure and Containerization

    Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes. Understanding of infrastructure-as-code, deployment automation, and service mesh technologies for managing complex production environments.

  • Production Reliability and Observability

    Expertise in production monitoring, logging, alerting, and incident response. Experience with observability platforms, SRE practices, and building reliable systems designed for rapid failure detection and recovery.

  • Data Systems and Performance Optimization

    Experience working with databases, caching layers, data processing systems, and understanding of storage architecture patterns. Proficiency in performance profiling, capacity planning, and optimizing systems for latency and throughput at scale.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field

    A strong foundation in computer science fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, operating systems, networking, and distributed systems theory. Alternative: Equivalent professional experience demonstrating mastery of foundational concepts can substitute for formal education.

Experience

  • 4+ Years Backend or Platform Systems Engineering

    Minimum 4 years of professional software engineering experience specifically building and operating production backend systems, platform infrastructure, or distributed systems. This experience should demonstrate progression in complexity and scope of systems ownership.

  • End-to-End Production System Ownership

    Proven track record of owning complex production systems end-to-end, from architecture and implementation through monitoring, debugging, and optimization. Demonstrated ability to deliver sustained technical impact across multiple teams and influence organizational infrastructure decisions.

  • Technical Leadership and Influence

    Demonstrated experience setting technical direction, leading cross-functional initiatives through influence rather than direct authority, and raising the engineering bar through architecture reviews, design documentation, and mentorship of other engineers.

  • Multiple Infrastructure Domains

    Meaningful hands-on experience across at least two infrastructure domains such as cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes and container orchestration, storage systems, databases, networking, data systems, developer infrastructure tools, or production reliability engineering and SRE practices.

  • Production Incident Expertise

    Strong ability to develop depth quickly in unfamiliar systems, reason across software and infrastructure layers, and drive production incidents from initial diagnosis through durable architectural resolution. Experience with sophisticated debugging techniques and root cause analysis.

Skills

Required

  • Python or Systems Language Proficiency

    Expert-level programming ability in Python, Go, Rust, C++, or Java with the ability to build, debug, and optimize production systems.

  • Distributed Systems Architecture

    Ability to design, architect, and reason about complex distributed systems including trade-offs between consistency, availability, and scalability.

  • Kubernetes and Container Orchestration

    Hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production environments, including cluster management, networking, storage provisioning, and troubleshooting.

  • Cloud Platform Operations

    Deep operational experience with AWS, GCP, or Azure including resource provisioning, optimization, cost management, and security configurations.

  • Production Incident Investigation

    Expert ability to diagnose and resolve complex production incidents through systematic debugging, log analysis, and cross-system root cause analysis.

  • Systems Design and Architecture

    Ability to architect large-scale systems for high availability, fault tolerance, and performance while considering operational complexity and maintainability.

Preferred

  • AI/ML Infrastructure Experience

    Nice to have

    Experience building or optimizing infrastructure for machine learning model serving, inference optimization, or large language model deployment at scale.

  • Data Platform Development

    Nice to have

    Background in building data systems including ETL pipelines, stream processing, distributed query engines, or real-time analytics platforms.

  • Search and Retrieval Systems

    Nice to have

    Familiarity with search infrastructure, information retrieval systems, vector databases, or building systems optimized for ranking and relevance.

  • Storage Systems Engineering

    Nice to have

    Experience designing or optimizing storage systems including distributed file systems, object storage, or database internals.

  • Network Infrastructure and Optimization

    Nice to have

    Expertise in network design, optimization, and troubleshooting at scale including load balancing, network security, and cross-datacenter communication.

  • Infrastructure Automation and IaC

    Nice to have

    Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation), configuration management, and automation frameworks for managing large-scale deployments.

  • Open Source Infrastructure Contribution

    Nice to have

    Demonstrated experience contributing to or maintaining open source infrastructure projects such as Kubernetes, etcd, Envoy, or other foundational infrastructure software.

  • Cost Optimization and FinOps

    Nice to have

    Experience conducting cloud cost analysis, identifying optimization opportunities, and implementing cost-saving strategies in large infrastructure environments.

Tech stack

Languages

PythonGoRustC++Java

Frameworks

KubernetesApache KafkagRPCService Mesh Technology

Databases

PostgreSQLRedisElasticsearchVector DatabasesTime-Series Databases

Tools

TerraformDockerPrometheusELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)Grafana

Other

AWS ServicesCI/CD PipelinesAPI Gateway and Load BalancingReal-Time Search and Retrieval InfrastructureModel Serving and Inference Infrastructure

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 220,000 – 405,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Competitive Equity Compensation

    Stock options aligning your financial interests with Perplexity's success as a well-funded, fast-growing AI company with significant growth potential.

  • Health and Wellness Benefits

    Comprehensive health insurance coverage including medical, dental, and vision plans for you and your dependents.

  • 401(k) Retirement Plan

    Employer-sponsored retirement savings plan with company matching contributions to support long-term financial security.

  • Unlimited PTO

    Flexible time-off policy allowing engineers to balance work and personal responsibilities without arbitrary accrual limits.

  • Professional Development and Learning

    Investment in your growth through conference attendance, training programs, and opportunities to work on cutting-edge infrastructure challenges.

  • Collaborative Engineering Culture

    Work alongside world-class infrastructure engineers and AI researchers in an environment that values technical excellence and innovation.

  • Remote-Friendly Environment

    Flexible work arrangements accommodating both in-office collaboration at Perplexity's San Francisco headquarters and remote contributions.

Full posting

Original listing.

About the Role

The Infrastructure team builds and operates the foundational systems behind Perplexity’s products. At Perplexity, infrastructure sits on the critical path of every answer, supporting real-time search, retrieval, model serving, and agent workloads where latency, reliability, and rapid iteration directly shape the user experience. This role is for strong infrastructure engineers whose experience spans multiple domains and who are energized by cross-cutting problems that do not fit neatly within a single platform team.

You do not need to be a specialist in every area. Scope ranges from owning major production systems to setting technical direction across teams, leading complex infrastructure programs, and shaping infrastructure strategy across the organization. If a specialized Cloud Infrastructure, Storage Platform, Backend Platform, Data Platform, Connector Platform, or AI Acceleration role clearly matches your expertise and interests, apply directly to it. If your experience spans several infrastructure domains or you are most energized by cross-cutting systems problems, apply here. Submit one application, and we will consider you across the Infrastructure organization.

Key Responsibilities

  • Own cross-cutting infrastructure problems that span compute, storage, networking, data, deployment, and reliability, including eliminating bottlenecks across retrieval and serving paths, building shared abstractions across deployment environments, and resolving failure modes that cross platform boundaries.

  • Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure supporting Perplexity’s consumer, AI, and enterprise workloads, owning systems from architecture through production operation.

  • Identify gaps between existing platforms and build shared abstractions, automation, and tooling that make infrastructure easier and safer to use.

  • Improve system performance, availability, scalability, and cost-efficiency across online request traffic and background workloads.

  • Debug complex production issues across service and infrastructure boundaries, then turn the findings into durable architectural improvements.

  • Set technical direction for complex infrastructure systems, lead high-impact programs across teams, and establish durable technical standards through collaboration with infrastructure, product, AI, and security partners.

Qualifications

  • 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production backend, platform, or distributed systems.

  • A track record of owning complex production systems end to end and delivering sustained technical impact across teams.

  • Demonstrated ability to set technical direction, lead through influence, and raise the engineering bar through architecture, design reviews, and mentorship.

  • Strong software engineering skills in Python or other systems or backend languages such as Go, Rust, C++, or Java.

  • Meaningful experience across at least two infrastructure domains, such as cloud platforms, distributed systems, Kubernetes, storage, databases, networking, data systems, developer infrastructure, or production reliability.

  • Ability to develop depth quickly in unfamiliar systems, reason across software and infrastructure layers, and drive production incidents from diagnosis through durable resolution.

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

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