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Backend Software Engineer

San Francisco Bay Area

Perplexity is looking for a backend engineer to join our small team revolutionizing the way people search and interact with the internet. You will be responsible for leading design, implementation, and scaling of systems that power web and mobile products.  Our backend stack is Python, Postgresql, DynamoDB, Redis, and Kubernetes, built alongside dedicated inhouse AI and search interfaces. The ideal candidate should have experience building systems, infrastructure, scaling, testing, and maintenance.

Responsibilities

  • Maintaining and optimizing key-value and relational databases.
  • Building interfaces between backend and consumer web/mobile clients.
  • Scaling and load balancing web server backends with rapidly changing needs.

Qualifications

  • Strong experience with Python.
  • Strong experience with databases and caching.
  • Experience with infrastructure/kubernetes.
  • Extensible system design skills.
  • 4+ years of engineering experience.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $180,000 - $230,000.

At Perplexity, we've experienced tremendous growth and adoption since publicly launching the world's first fully functional conversational answer engine just over a year ago. Our AI-powered search assistant has amassed 10 million monthly active users as of early 2024, with our mobile apps installed over 1 million times across iOS and Android devices. In 2023 alone, we served over 500 million queries from users around the globe.

To support our rapid expansion, we've raised significant funding from some of the most respected investors in technology. In January 2024, we raised $73.6 million in a Series B round led by IVP, with participation from NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos' investment fund, NEA, Databricks, and other prominent firms. We followed that up with a $62.7 million Series B1 round in April 2024 led by Daniel Gross, valuing Perplexity at over $1 billion.
Our prominent investor base includes IVP, NEA, Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA, Databricks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Naval Ravikant, Tobi Lutke, and many other visionary individuals.
Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including, experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.
 
Equity: In addition to the base salary, equity is part of the total compensation package.
Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents. Includes a 401(k) plan.
 
 

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