Member of Technical Staff (iOS Engineer, Computer Growth)
Perplexity is hiring a Member of Technical Staff (iOS Engineer, Computer Growth) in San Francisco, United States. It pays $220k-$405k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Perplexity.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- The listed pay starts 31% above the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include iOS, Swift and Objective C.
- Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
- Level lists 131 other open roles at Perplexity.
AI in this role
Build and scale growth experiences for AI-native mobile apps on iOS through experimentation and funnel optimization.
In 2026, we launched Computer, the defining product for the new era of agentic AI. Millions of people now use Perplexity to transform knowledge into action, and a growing share of them meet us first on their phone. The Growth team owns the product loops that help people discover, adopt, and build lasting habits around our most important AI experiences — and on mobile that means owning everything from the App Store listing to the first task a user finishes to the moment they upgrade.
As a mobile growth engineer at Perplexity, you'll work across the full mobile funnel — install, activation, onboarding, push and lifecycle messaging, conversion, retention, and in-app purchase moments — for Perplexity, Comet, and Computer on iOS. Engineers are responsible for end-to-end projects: rebuilding onboarding as a series of experiments, wiring in-app purchase and paywall surfaces to our billing systems, shipping notification experiences people actually keep enabled, and turning ASO and deep-link work into measurable adoption.
Growth at Perplexity goes beyond incremental funnel optimization. The team sits close to the core product — we translate behavioral signals, model outputs, and fast experimentation into durable product surfaces used across consumer and enterprise workflows. You'll move fast, run many experiments in parallel, and own the outcome end-to-end, while respecting the constraints mobile brings: release cycles, store review, and version fragmentation.
Why Perplexity is different
Craftsmanship. We build high quality, tasteful products targeting both the AI native and AI curious.
Ownership. You identify the problem, design the solution, and ship it.
Entrepreneurship. We think like founders, act with urgency, and hustle to deliver for each other and our users.
Scholarship. Work among highly talented peers, pursuing knowledge and truth, upleveling ourselves, our teams, and our products.
Partnership. We amplify each others' strengths, break down silos, and give selflessly to help our colleagues deliver excellence.
What you'll do
Design, build, and own growth surfaces across the mobile funnel — install, activation, onboarding, lifecycle, conversion, retention, and paid upgrade moments — on iOS.
Lead experiments end-to-end, from hypothesis and instrumentation through implementation, analysis, and rollout, shipping many in parallel despite app release cadence. Build the flag-driven and server-driven patterns that let us test without waiting on a store release.
Own in-app purchase and paywall surfaces: billing integrations, subscription and credit purchase flows, entitlement correctness, and pricing and packaging experiments.
Build push and lifecycle notification experiences that earn their opt-in — permission prompts, targeting, timing, deep links back into the right task, and the instrumentation to prove they drive retention rather than churn.
Make cross-platform surfaces feel native. Partner with web and design engineers so onboarding, upsells, and in-task nudges are consistent across web, iOS, and Android
Partner with rest of Growth to optimize app store performance and attribution
Hill-climb on the metrics that matter: install-to-activation, D1/D7/D30 retention, notification opt-in and engagement, paid conversion, and habit formation, instrumented with clean data and trustworthy experiment readouts.
Partner closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Monetization, Marketing, and the core Mobile team to translate behavioral signals into durable product surfaces.
Qualifications
3+ years of professional mobile engineering experience shipping consumer apps at meaningful scale on iOS.
Strong native skills (eg. Swift/SwiftUI/Objective-C) — and the willingness to flex into other parts of the stack to unblock yourself and others.
Experience owning a full release cycle: build and release tooling, phased rollouts, store review, crash and regression monitoring, and rolling back safely.
Strong execution: you ship many experiments and product improvements in parallel and drive them to a clear outcome.
Familiarity with A/B testing and experimentation platforms (Eppo, Statsig, Optimizely, or in-house equivalents) especially inside a versioned app.
Comfort data-informed decision-making — you can pull, segment, and interpret your own funnel data.
Strong product judgment; you translate user behavior and growth opportunities into simple, effective technical solutions.
Self-motivated with strong ownership instincts; you propose experiments, ship features ahead of schedule, and drive improvements without asking for permission.
Genuine interest and adoption of AI products and willingness to learn quickly.
Nice to have
Direct experience on a growth or experimentation-heavy team
Deep experience with in-app payments
Experience with mobile attribution and measurement stacks (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch) and paid mobile acquisition.
ASO experience, including store listing experiments and localized metadata.
Comfort reaching into the backend or web stack to unblock yourself end-to-end.
Time spent at a fast-growing startup or on a high-ownership engineering team.
How we rate this
Member of Technical Staff (iOS Engineer, Computer Growth) at Perplexity rates 65 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Pay
- This job starts at
- $220k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 31% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where mobile growth was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where experimentation was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where funnel optimization was part of your work. What did you do?
- What's a project where you used iOS hands-on?
- Walk me through how you've used Swift in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Mobile Growth, Experimentation, Funnel Optimization, iOS, and Swift. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.
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