Staff Backend Engineer - San Francisco - Perplexity

    Perplexity
    Perplexity San Francisco

    3 days ago

    Description

    Join to apply for the Staff Backend Engineer - API Platform role at Perplexity

    This range is provided by Perplexity. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience talk with your recruiter to learn more.

    Base pay range

    $180,000.00/yr - $300,000.00/yr

    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 Perplexitys 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 Staff Backend Engineer, you will shape the technical foundation of Perplexitys external platform. Youll architect distributed systems, optimize performance at scale, and set engineering standards that ensure our APIs are fast, resilient, and a delight to build on.

    Tech Stack: Python | Go | PostgreSQL | DynamoDB | Redis | FastAPI | React | Bazel | GitHub | AWS

    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.

    Compensation & Benefits

    • Our compensation range for this role is $180,000 - $300,000
    • 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 may be part of the total compensation package.
    • Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents. Includes a 401(k) plan.

    Compensation Range: $180K - $300K

    Seniority level

    • Mid?Senior level

    Employment type

    • Full?time

    Job function

    • Engineering and Information Technology
    • Industries: Software Development

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