Senior/Staff Web Platform Engineer

Perplexity AI2 months ago

Location

San Francisco

Type

Full Time

Salary

USD 250,000 – 405,000

Level

Senior

Role

Web Platform Engineer

Posted

Dec 22, 2025

Full TimeSenior

The role

Summary

Perplexity AI is seeking a Senior/Staff Web Platform Engineer to drive the development of critical web infrastructure for their AI-powered answer engine and Comet browser. The ideal candidate will optimize web performance, build developer productivity tools, and create scalable frontend systems that enable rapid innovation across multiple product surfaces.

What you'll do

Web Performance Optimization: Optimize performance for critical web flows including search, answer rendering, and browsing, with a focus on improving application response speed and perceived latency.

UI Component Development: Design and implement solutions for customizable user interfaces and experience components across Perplexity and Comet platforms.

Monitoring and Reliability: Develop and improve frontend alerting and monitoring systems to ensure reliability and rapid incident response for web experiences.

Developer Productivity: Build self-serve capabilities and primitives that enable feature teams to ship frontend components quickly without deep platform expertise.

Technology Maintenance: Contribute to upgrading and maintaining core web technologies used across Perplexity's web stack, including React, TypeScript, and build tooling.

Cross-Team Collaboration: Collaborate closely with product, design, search, infrastructure, and mobile teams to deliver cohesive and performant web experiences end-to-end.

What we look for

Technical

Web TechnologiesMinimum 6+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in modern JavaScript frameworks, particularly React

Performance OptimizationProven experience in web application performance optimization, understanding metrics like time-to-first-byte and time-to-interactive

Monitoring ToolsFamiliarity with frontend monitoring systems such as Sentry, Datadog, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry-based tooling

Education

DegreeBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field preferred

Experience

Production EnvironmentDemonstrated track record of managing technical migrations and large refactors in production web environments

Developer ToolingExperience in supporting developer productivity and building abstractions that engineers rely on daily

Skills

Required skills

ReactDeep expertise in React framework and modern JavaScript development

TypeScriptStrong proficiency in TypeScript and type-safe development practices

Web PerformanceAdvanced skills in web application performance optimization techniques

Nice to have

AI Product ExperienceBackground working with AI products or integrating AI models into web applications

Design SystemsExperience with design systems and shared component libraries

Edge DeploymentKnowledge of multi-region deployment architectures and edge rendering

Compensation & benefits

Salary

USD 250,000 – 405,000 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Health Insurance

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage

Stock Options

Equity compensation for long-term team members

Professional Development

Budget for conferences, courses, and continuous learning

Flexible Work Arrangement

Potential for remote or hybrid work options

Interview process

1
Initial Screening — Phone or video call with recruiting team to discuss background and experience
2
Technical Interview — In-depth technical discussion focusing on web platform engineering skills and experience
3
Coding Challenge — Hands-on coding assessment to evaluate problem-solving and technical implementation skills
4
System Design Interview — Architectural discussion to assess ability to design scalable web platform solutions
5
Team Fit Interview — Conversations with potential team members to evaluate collaboration and cultural alignment
6
Final Executive Interview — Meeting with senior leadership to discuss vision and potential impact