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Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer)

Perplexity · San Francisco

Location
San Francisco
Employment
Full time
Level
Staff
Posted
5 months ago

About this role

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).

As published by Perplexity. Applications are handled on their site.

Skills this posting mentions

Artificial IntelligenceGPU ProgrammingSystems Programming

About Perplexity

Perplexity AI builds AI native search tools. Perplexity Ask, a new search interface that uses OpenAI GPT 3.5 and Microsoft Bing to directly answer any question you ask.

All 114 openings at Perplexity

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Queue Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer) and I read the posting, rewrite your resume against it, draft the cover letter, and score the fit. Then you press send, or press one button and I fill in Perplexity’s form for you.

  1. 01Drop your resume

    A PDF or a LinkedIn URL. About a minute, once.

  2. 02I rank the openings

    Every weekday morning, the live catalog scored against your history. Up to 20 worth your time, not two hundred links.

  3. 03Each one is written up

    Resume rewritten for the posting, a cover letter, a fit score. Press send, or let me fill in the form.

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Paste your career in once. Every application after that is written for you.

Drop a resume or a LinkedIn URL. I rank the live openings against it, rewrite the resume and write a cover letter for the best of them, and fill in the employer's form when you press the button. You read, you decide what goes out.

  1. 01Drop your resume

    A PDF or a LinkedIn URL. About a minute, once.

  2. 02I rank the openings

    Every weekday morning, the live catalog scored against your history. Up to 20 worth your time, not two hundred links.

  3. 03Each one is written up

    Resume rewritten for the posting, a cover letter, a fit score. Press send, or let me fill in the form.

  • New matches ranked and written before you are up.
  • Every bullet stays inside what your history supports. Nothing invented.
  • Queued, submitted, interviewing, offer: one screen, not a spreadsheet.

500 free credits on sign-up. No card. Nothing is sent until you say so.

Listed from the job board Perplexity publishes. Refolk is not the employer and does not handle their hiring. Applications go to Perplexity directly.