Member of Technical Staff (New Grad)

AI in this role

Build frontier AI intelligence systems, agent harnesses, and inference infrastructure as a new grad at Perplexity.

ai-inferencemachine-learningdistributed-systemssoftware-engineering

Welcome! This is the general application portal for university students and recent graduates who wish to be considered for full-time Member of Technical Staff positions at Perplexity. Our elite new grad cohorts enjoy unparalleled mentorship, top-of-market compensation, and the chance to tackle some of the deepest, thorniest challenges in frontier intelligence.

NOTE: if you attend one of our focus schools listed below, please do not apply via this portal as it is infrequently monitored due to high volume. Apply instead via the school-specific application portal below to ensure your application receives priority attention.

Focus schools (United States) - application portals

Focus Schools (Canada) - application portals

McGill | UBC | UToronto | Waterloo

Early Career Talent @ Perplexity

Perplexity believes that exceptionally talented individuals at any stage can thrive in our high-velocity, high-ownership culture. Our early career talent program revolves around:

Breadth: New grads at Perplexity work across the stack, from Perplexity's agent harnesses to our AI inference and training systems. Many of our most beloved features and most important systems were shipped by individuals fresh out of school.
Depth: New grads are entrusted (and expected) to dive deep into whatever problem domains you work on. Often, your work will require you to become a world expert in some problem space that few others in the world have encountered.
Mentorship & Growth: We keep the size of our entering new grad cohorts at well below 10% of our technical team. Each individual enjoys a rich network of mentors to help them grow, and our new grads have a track record of becoming some of Perplexity's most senior and prolific team members.
Recognition: We select for the best and we recognize them accordingly. We set our early career compensation to rise well above that of top tech companies and startups. Post-hire, we aggressively recognize and reward growth in role.
Mission: Perplexity is AI for people who expect more. Our mission is to build frontier intelligence for the world's most discerning users, and each contribution you make will directly advance that mission.

Academic requirements

If you're not applying from a focus school listed above, we typically require you to possess the following qualifications:

GPA of ≥3.92, averaged across all CS and Math classes; and
Grade of A or A+ in your school's upper-level algorithms course.

Additional advanced coursework in areas such as systems, AI/ML, advanced math, and other rigorous subjects is highly welcome.

Non-qualifying applications - evidence of exceptional ability

While you're welcome to submit your application if you don't meet these criteria, we will be looking for other evidence of exceptional ability. You are encouraged to briefly describe this evidence in response to the "Anything Else" question at the bottom of the application form.

Note on fellowship opportunities

This portal accepts applications for full-time roles at Perplexity. Internship applications are not accepted via this portal. If you're interested in short-term opportunities with our team, you may instead be interested in the Perplexity Research Fellowship. The Fellowship has a separate application process detailed here. Note that Fellowship applications are extremely competitive; in particular, we don't expect to admit any undergraduate students to the Fellowship before their final year of study.

How we rate this

Member of Technical Staff (New Grad) at Perplexity rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● 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. Open the description and count.

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

AI InferenceMachine LearningDistributed SystemsSoftware Engineering

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where ai inference was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI Inference, Machine Learning, Distributed Systems, and Software Engineering. 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.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped — this role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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