Software Engineer - Agent Infra

Perplexity AI, Inc.

Job Overview

Location

Remote

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Join Perplexity as a Software Engineer focused on Agent Infrastructure, a pivotal role in shaping the future of our intelligent agentic products. You will be instrumental in designing, developing, and evolving the core systems that empower our cutting-edge agent technologies across Perplexity Search, Deep Research, and the Comet browser.
• This role is at the heart of innovation, where you'll architect and implement the runtime, orchestration, evaluation, and training systems that enable agents to intelligently plan, utilize tools, browse the web, and verify information at an unprecedented scale.
• Your primary responsibility will be to design and implement a highly reliable and scalable agent runtime. This includes developing robust orchestration mechanisms, managing shared state and memory effectively, creating seamless tool-calling interfaces, and implementing sophisticated scheduling strategies to optimize for cost, latency, and overall quality of agent interactions.
• You will build secure, sandboxed execution environments for agent actions and code. This is critical for ensuring the safety and integrity of agent operations, allowing them to perform complex tasks without compromising system security.
• A key focus will be on optimizing critical performance aspects such as cold start times, resource isolation between agents, and enhancing observability to provide deep insights into agent behavior and performance.
• You will be responsible for shipping unified interfaces that seamlessly support multiple model sizes and providers, ensuring flexibility and adaptability in our agent ecosystem.
• Integration with open tool ecosystems is a significant part of this role. You'll work with standards like MCP-style connectors to facilitate data access and action execution, broadening the capabilities of our agents.
• Develop and refine a comprehensive evaluation platform. This platform will be crucial for both online and offline assessments, enabling A/B testing, rigorous safety checks, and implementing regression gates to continuously improve agent reliability and performance over time.
• Collaborate closely with our Research, Inference, and Search teams to bring new agent capabilities to life. You will be involved in the end-to-end lifecycle, from initial prototyping and experimentation to full-scale production deployment.
• This is an opportunity to work on foundational technology that directly impacts millions of users, enhancing their ability to find information, conduct research, and navigate the web more effectively.
• You will tackle complex challenges in distributed systems, AI/ML infrastructure, and high-throughput computing, contributing to a product that is redefining how people interact with information.
• The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of system design principles and a passion for building scalable, resilient, and efficient software.
• You will contribute to a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and rapid iteration, working in a fast-paced environment where your contributions have a tangible impact.
• This role offers the chance to work with state-of-the-art technologies and to influence the direction of agent development at a leading AI company.
• You will be a key player in ensuring our agents are not only powerful but also safe, reliable, and efficient, setting new standards in the industry.
• The work involves deep technical challenges, from optimizing resource utilization to ensuring robust security protocols for multi-tenant environments.
• You will gain exposure to a wide range of technologies and methodologies, fostering professional growth and development.
• Contribute to the architectural decisions and technical roadmap for agent infrastructure, ensuring it scales with Perplexity's ambitious growth plans.
• Drive best practices in software engineering, including code quality, testing, monitoring, and deployment.
• Be a champion for reliability and performance, ensuring our agent systems meet the highest standards.
• This role is perfect for an engineer who thrives on solving complex problems and building systems that power intelligent applications.

🎯 Requirements

• 6+ years of industry experience building large-scale systems or platforms.
• Experience building agent applications with tool calling, context engineering, or open connector integrations.
• Strong coding skills in one or more of Python, Java, Go.
• Comfortable with service design, APIs, and data models for high-throughput systems.
• Working knowledge of containers, virtualization, and sandboxing.
• Familiar with metrics, tracing, on-call, and incident management practices.

🏖️ Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity package.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Generous paid time off and holidays.
• Remote work flexibility.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI technology.
• Professional development and learning opportunities.

Skills & Technologies

Python

Java

Remote

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Perplexity AI, Inc.

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About Perplexity AI, Inc.

Perplexity AI operates an AI-powered conversational search engine that answers queries by synthesizing live web information. The platform combines large language models with real-time retrieval, citing sources for transparency. Founded in 2022, the San Francisco-based company offers free and subscription tiers, mobile apps, and browser extensions, targeting consumers and enterprises seeking accurate, verifiable answers instead of traditional link lists.

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