Backend Software Engineer

📋 Description

• • As a Backend Software Engineer at Perplexity, you will be at the forefront of revolutionizing how people interact with information online. You will play a pivotal role in designing, implementing, and scaling the robust backend systems that power our cutting-edge web, mobile, and browser products. This is an opportunity to join a small, dynamic team where your contributions will have a direct and significant impact on the future of search and AI-driven experiences.
• • You will be instrumental in building and maintaining the foundational infrastructure that enables Perplexity's core functionalities. This includes developing scalable systems capable of ingesting and processing vast amounts of data from diverse sources such as the web, user-uploaded files, and other external inputs. Your work will ensure that our platform can handle the ever-increasing volume and complexity of information required to deliver intelligent search results.
• • A key aspect of this role involves optimizing the interfaces that interact with our data storage and retrieval systems. This includes working with databases and caching layers to ensure high performance, low latency, and efficient data access. You will be responsible for making critical decisions about data architecture and query optimization to support a seamless user experience.
• • Collaboration is central to our success. You will work closely with Product Managers to deeply understand product requirements and translate them into effective technical solutions. You will also partner with frontend engineers to ensure smooth integration between the backend services and the user-facing applications, creating a cohesive and intuitive product.
• • A unique challenge and opportunity in this role is the close collaboration with our AI, Search, and Data Science teams. You will be involved in iterating on non-deterministic systems, which are at the core of our AI-powered features. This requires a thoughtful approach to system design, error handling, and performance tuning for systems that don't always produce the same output.
• • You will manage and evolve a complex orchestration system that involves numerous interconnected components and interfaces. This system is critical for coordinating various backend processes and ensuring the smooth flow of data and operations across the platform.
• • Scaling, optimizing, and load balancing multiple services will be a continuous responsibility. As Perplexity grows and user demand increases, you will need to ensure our backend infrastructure remains performant, reliable, and cost-efficient, adapting to rapidly changing needs and traffic patterns.
• • Depending on your team placement, you might contribute to specific areas like the File Platform, which requires building a unified, scalable, and secure file layer for attachments, syncing file drives, and generated assets. This involves end-to-end capabilities for parsing, indexing, content moderation, connectors to cloud/local storage, file search APIs, and user file management, defining clear platform abstractions and extensible APIs.
• • Alternatively, you could join the Enterprise Growth team, focusing on core platform capabilities for enterprise customers, including authentication (SSO, SCIM, RBAC), organization management, and admin controls (feature controls, audit logs, usage analytics) to drive adoption and ensure secure deployment at scale.
• • The Growth team offers the chance to shape user experiences across all surfaces, rapidly experimenting with AI-powered features like personalized prompts and auto-generated study guides to drive activation, retention, and revenue. You'd also own Perplexity's growth platform, including experimentation frameworks and feature flagging.
• • The Commerce team is another exciting area, owning the full commerce stack from payments infrastructure to agentic commerce capabilities. This involves building and scaling billing for subscriptions, enterprise plans, API usage, and premium features, as well as developing secure systems for autonomous payment interactions.
• • The Core Experience team focuses on the refined human-machine interface, building the cross-platform foundations for the asking experience. This involves developing expressive UX patterns, tight frontend interactions, and clear information hierarchy while maintaining performant APIs and upholding uncompromising standards for design, architecture, and craft, obsessing over latency, reliability, and extensibility.
• • Finally, the Live Events team explores reimagining consumer experiences across various verticals like travel, shopping, and finance, leveraging AI-powered exploration, personalization, and agentic actions to unlock novel consumer experiences such as automated purchases and itinerary planning.
• • Regardless of the specific team, you will be expected to think critically and make sound decisions, qualities that directly influence our AI development. We value your unique thought process and problem-solving skills, which are essential for advancing our AI capabilities.