Member of Technical Staff (Backend Software Engineer, API Platform)

About Perplexity AI Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine built to serve the world’s curiosity with fast, trustworthy answers grounded in the live web and backed by clear citations. It combines multiple leading models with real-time search to synthesize up-to-date, source-linked responses instead of traditional search results. On top of this foundation, Perplexity is rolling out Computer, a general-purpose AI worker that can use software like a human to research, build, and execute end-to-end workflows for users. About the Role Perplexity is redefining how people search, reason, and interact with information. Our API team sits at the core of this vision, designing and operating the high-performance interfaces that expose Perplexity’s intelligence to developers, enterprises, and products worldwide. This team owns the architecture, reliability, and security of the APIs that power everything from real-time LLM queries to enterprise-scale integrations. As a member of our API Platform engineering team, you will shape the technical foundation of Perplexity’s external platform. You’ll architect distributed systems, optimize performance at scale, and set engineering standards that ensure our APIs are fast, resilient, and a delight to build on. Key Responsibilities Design, build, and operate mission-critical APIs in Python, Go, or Rust optimized for low latency, high throughput, and strong consistency. Lead major technical initiatives, from new platform components to multi-team system redesigns. Improve system reliability and security by implementing rate limiting, authentication, observability (metrics, tracing, logging), and automated testing. Collaborate across teams to determine when to extend existing systems versus build new, specialized services. Translate customer needs into scalable platform capabilities and generalized API features. Uphold engineering excellence through design reviews, code quality, and internal documentation. Qualifications 5+ years of backend engineering experience with Python, Go, or Rust. Strong understanding of high-traffic API design: versioning, schema evolution, idempotency, auth patterns, and performance tuning. Hands-on experience running AWS services, plus fluency with Kubernetes, CI/CD, and modern DevOps practices. Experience with LLM or natural-language APIs (latency tuning, streaming, model orchestration) is a strong plus. Strong customer empathy and product sense, ensuring the APIs you build are ergonomic, well-documented, and easy to adopt. If you’re excited about this role, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn’t match every qualification listed above.