Demo

Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer)

Perplexity
Palo Alto, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 5/27/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 9/26/2026
We build and run the inference engine behind every Perplexity query and deploy dozens of model architectures at scale with tight latency and cost budgets. Our stack is Rust, Python, CUDA, and CuTe DSL - and we need another engineer to join us.

What you will work on

Examples Of Real Work The Team Does

  • New models support. Support transformer-based retrieval, text-generation, and multimodal models in our inference infrastructure, from weight loading, request scheduling and KV-cache management to support in API Gateway.
  • GPU kernels migration to CuTe DSL. Port our in-house CUDA kernels to NVIDIA's CuTe DSL so they run on GB200 today and are portable to Vera Rubin racks tomorrow.
  • Rust-native serving runtime. Develop our internal Rust-based inference server to solve all Python pains and keep up with rapidly growing traffic.
  • Performance optimisation. Profile and fix bottlenecks from network ingress through continuous batching and GPU kernel interleaving.
  • Reliability and observability. Build dashboards, alerts, and automated remediation so we catch regressions before users do. Respond to and learn from production incidents.

Who we're looking for

  • Deep experience with GPU programming and performance work (CUDA, Triton, CUTLASS, or similar). Any other deep systems programming experience is a plus.
  • You understand modern LLM architectures and are able to bring them up reliably in a production environment.
  • You've built and operated production distributed systems under real load - ideally performance-critical ones.
  • Comfortable working across languages and layers: Rust for the serving runtime, Python for model code, CUDA/CuteDSL for kernels.
  • You own problems end-to-end. You can read a research paper on Monday, write a kernel on Wednesday, and debug a production incident on Friday.
  • Self-directed. You do well in fast-moving environments where the path forward isn't laid out for you.

Good if you touched any of

  • ML compilers and framework internals: PyTorch internals, torch.compile, custom operators.
  • Distributed GPU communication: NCCL, NVLink, InfiniBand, RDMA libraries, model/tensor parallelism.
  • Low-precision inference: INT8/FP8/FP4 quantization, mixed-precision serving.
  • Profiling and debugging tools: Nsight Compute/Systems, CUDA-GDB, PTX/SASS analysis.
  • Container orchestration: Kubernetes, GPU scheduling, autoscaling inference workloads.

Qualifications

  • 3 years of professional software engineering experience with meaningful work on ML inference or high-performance systems.
  • Familiarity with at least one deep learning framework (PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow).
  • Understanding of GPU architectures (memory hierarchy, warp scheduling, tensor cores).
  • Understanding of common LLM architectures and inference optimization techniques (e.g. quantization, speculative decoding, prefill-decode disaggregation).

Compensation Range: $220K - $485K

Salary : $220,000 - $485,000

If your compensation planning software is too rigid to deploy winning incentive strategies, it’s time to find an adaptable solution. Compensation Planning
Enhance your organization's compensation strategy with salary data sets that HR and team managers can use to pay your staff right. Surveys & Data Sets
Employees: Get a Salary Increase
View Core, Job Family, and Industry Job Skills and Competency Data for more than 15,000 Job Titles Skills Library

Job openings at Perplexity

  • Perplexity York, NY
  • Perplexity serves tens of millions of users daily with reliable, high-quality answers grounded in an LLM-first search engine and specialized data sources. ... more
  • 1 Day Ago

  • Perplexity San Francisco, CA
  • What You’ll Do Drive Revenue & Qualify Opportunities Balance dual responsibilities of direct revenue generation and pipeline development for the broader sa... more
  • 1 Day Ago

  • Perplexity San Francisco, CA
  • Perplexity is seeking a Research Engineering Manager to lead the team of all-star AI researchers and engineers responsible for developing the models that d... more
  • 2 Days Ago

  • Perplexity San Francisco, CA
  • Perplexity is revolutionizing how companies get work done. We are seeking a Product Marketing Manager to join our team and serve as the strategic bridge be... more
  • 7 Days Ago


Not the job you're looking for? Here are some other Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer) jobs in the Palo Alto, CA area that may be a better fit.

  • xAI Palo Alto, CA
  • About xAI xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. Our team is small... more
  • 2 Days Ago

  • Employia Palo Alto, CA
  • About the Company We’re partnering with a well-funded AI research company building the future of specialized intelligence through AI agents. Their mission ... more
  • 2 Days Ago

AI Assistant is available now!

Feel free to start your new journey!