Member of Technical Staff (ML Engineer, Recommendations & User Modeling)

at Perplexity AI

📍 Palo Alto, United States
📍 San Francisco, United States

USD 220,000-405,000 per year

MIDDLE

✅ On-site

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI Experimentation @ 6 LLM @ 3 Leadership @ 3 Machine Learning @ 6 Technical Leadership @ 3

Details

Perplexity is seeking experienced ML engineers to design, build, and optimize the recommendation systems that power core product experiences. The role focuses on reimagining recommendation systems for the LLM era by combining frontier LLMs, personalization context from product usage, and continual learning capabilities to understand user needs and recommend useful actions.

Responsibilities

Own the personalization and ranking behind key product surfaces to improve user experiences and impact core user and business metrics.
Build user modeling systems that capture intent, preference, and propensity.
Design decision layers that balance competing objectives to produce the best overall user experience.
Build data and evaluation foundations that enable systems to learn and improve through usage.
Help shape the technical direction of ranking, recommendations, and personalization at Perplexity.

Requirements

Deep, hands-on experience building production recommendation, ranking, or personalization systems at scale.
Strong machine learning fundamentals, including engagement modeling, model calibration, offline and online metrics, and online experimentation.
Experience integrating large language models into ranking, retrieval, or personalization pipelines.
Good judgment regarding personalization in an LLM-native product, with curiosity about reimagining it from first principles.
For technical leadership roles, prior experience setting technical direction for recommendation or ranking projects.

Nice to Have

Experience with large-scale ranking and training infrastructure, including multi-stage retrieval and ranking, feature stores, and real-time serving.
Background in user understanding, feed ranking, notifications, growth, or lifecycle modeling.

Company Mission

Perplexity's mission is to power curiosity through a continuous cycle of learning, building, integrating, and repeating. The company builds AI products that help people find answers, make consequential decisions, and complete increasingly ambitious work.

Benefits

Full-time U.S. employees receive benefits including equity, health, dental, vision, retirement, fitness, commuter and dependent care accounts, and more. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions. Final offers vary based on factors including experience and expertise.