Scale Engineer

Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Storage Platform)

Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time

San FranciscoUSD 220k – 405k1mo ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Perplexity AI is seeking a highly skilled Member of Technical Staff to join their Storage Platform team, responsible for designing and maintaining mission-critical infrastructure that powers data persistence, retrieval, and management across their AI-driven answer engine. The ideal candidate will be a technical expert in distributed systems and database technologies who can build robust, scalable storage solutions that enable product innovation.

Responsibilities

  • Storage Platform Architecture: Design, develop, and maintain comprehensive storage infrastructure supporting Perplexity's AI products across relational, NoSQL, and vector database technologies.
  • System Reliability: Manage and optimize reliability, performance, and availability service level objectives (SLOs) for stateful systems, conducting root cause analysis and implementing long-term solutions.
  • Storage Abstractions: Create and evolve opinionated storage abstractions, APIs, and tooling to simplify and secure large-scale storage consumption for product teams.
  • Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with AI, infrastructure, and product teams to design optimal data models and access patterns that meet performance and cost-efficiency requirements.
  • Capacity Management: Lead comprehensive capacity planning, benchmarking, and lifecycle management for storage clusters, including scaling, migrations, and strategic deprecations.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Database Technologies

    Extensive experience with major database systems like Postgres, MySQL, DynamoDB, or Cassandra

  • Programming Languages

    Proficiency in backend system languages such as Go, Rust, or Python

  • Distributed Systems

    Strong understanding of distributed systems architecture, data modeling, and performance optimization

Education

  • Computer Science Background

    Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical discipline preferred

Experience

  • Production Systems

    5+ years of experience building and operating large-scale backend or infrastructure systems in production environments

  • End-to-End Service Ownership

    Proven track record of comprehensive service management including design, implementation, deployment, and on-call responsibilities

Skills

Required

  • Distributed Systems

    Advanced knowledge of distributed system design and optimization

  • Database Management

    Expert-level database technology and infrastructure management skills

  • Performance Optimization

    Proven ability to optimize high-throughput, low-latency systems

Preferred

  • Cloud Services

    Nice to have

    Experience with modern cloud storage services and multi-cloud architectures

  • AI Infrastructure

    Nice to have

    Understanding of AI workload-specific storage and infrastructure requirements

Tech stack

Languages

GoRustPython

Databases

PostgresMySQLDynamoDBCassandra

Tools

KubernetesPrometheusGrafana

Other

Vector Databases

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 220,000 – 405,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Equity Compensation

    Stock options providing potential long-term financial upside in a high-growth AI startup

  • Competitive Salary

    Comprehensive compensation package ranging from $220K to $405K annually

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Screening

    Phone or video call with recruiter to discuss background and role fit

  2. 02

    Technical Interview

    Deep-dive technical assessment focusing on distributed systems, database design, and system architecture

  3. 03

    System Design Challenge

    Comprehensive evaluation of candidate's ability to design scalable storage infrastructure

  4. 04

    Team Fit Interviews

    Meetings with potential teammates to assess collaboration and communication skills

  5. 05

    Final Leadership Interview

    Discussion with senior technical leadership to align on long-term potential and team vision

Full posting

Original listing.

About the Role

The Storage Platform team owns the infrastructure that powers how Perplexity persists, retrieves, and manages data across all systems, ensuring high availability, performance, and cost-efficiency for every product and AI workload.

This foundational, high-impact group is responsible for the full spectrum of storage technologies – relational databases, vector databases, custom storage implementations, and the tooling to provision, monitor, and optimize them at scale.

By building robust abstractions and operational excellence around storage, the team enables engineers across Perplexity to focus on product innovation while trusting that data is fast, reliable, and always accessible.

Key Responsibilities

  • Design, operate, and continuously improve the storage platform that underpins all Perplexity products and AI workloads, including relational, NoSQL, and vector databases.

  • Own reliability, performance, and availability SLOs for stateful systems, driving root cause analysis and long‑term fixes for storage‑related incidents.

  • Define and evolve opinionated storage abstractions, APIs, and tooling that make it simple and safe for product teams to consume storage at scale.

  • Partner with AI, infra, and product teams to design data models and access patterns that meet low‑latency, high‑throughput, and cost‑efficiency requirements.

  • Lead capacity planning, benchmarking, and lifecycle management for storage clusters, including scaling, migrations, and deprecations.

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience building and operating large‑scale backend or infrastructure systems in production.

  • Deep hands‑on experience with at least one major database technology (for example, Postgres, MySQL, DynamoDB, Cassandra) and familiarity with modern cloud storage services.

  • Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, data modeling, and performance optimization for high‑throughput, low‑latency workloads.

  • Proven track record of owning services end‑to‑end, including design, implementation, deployment, and on‑call.

  • Proficiency in at least one programming language used for backend systems (such as Go, Rust, or Python).

  • Effective communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to partner closely with product, infra, and AI teams.

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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