Member of Technical Staff (AI Policy and Strategic Initiatives)
Hybrid engineering/policy role on Perplexity's Policy & Strategic Initiatives team, working directly with senior leadership on AI policy research (using AI agents), patent automation platforms, litigation support, and privacy/compliance systems. Requires strong software engineering skills plus aptitude for law, policy, and writing; onsite in San Francisco.
- Compensation
- $220K–$405K / yr
- Location
- San Francisco
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Evidence of exceptional ability and 99th-percentile work ethic
- Strong technical skills at or above Perplexity's hiring bar for software engineers
- Fluency with frontier intelligence tools (such as Perplexity Computer)
- High intrinsically-enforced standards for craft and quality of work
- Strong communication and writing skills, ideally with samples of past written work
- Curiosity about new and unfamiliar fields; eagerness to redefine the job every 3-6 months
- Ability to quickly dive deep into any field and develop expert-level mastery
- Unimpeachable judgment, integrity, and discretion
- Service-oriented attitude toward improving company systems and processes
Nice to have
- Early-career engineers (new grads welcome) well-read in law, tech policy, or economics
- Experienced engineers from top tech companies seeking policy, business, and operations growth
- Lawyers or economists (new JD/PhD grads welcome) with sharp engineering skills
- Minimum 2-year commitment if planning to attend law school or PhD programs (entering class 2028 or later)
Full description
Perplexity is seeking an intrepid Member of Technical Staff to take on one of the AI industry's most unique engineering roles. You'll work directly with Perplexity's senior leadership to spearhead a broad portfolio of strategic technology initiatives across policy, law, operations, and corporate affairs.
As a Member of Technical Staff in the Policy & Strategic Initiatives group, you'll occupy a front-row seat to the foremost policy issues animating the AI ecosystem. You'll also get a panoptic view of how leading AI companies operate, make decisions, and engage with broader society.
Those seeking to marry technical expertise and broader interests in law, policy, and corporate affairs will find a home in this role. You'll make contributions to Perplexity that defy traditional boundaries, with a bench of mentors who will push you to learn and grow day after day.
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What you'll do:
Your work will be both highly interdisciplinary and firmly grounded in engineering rigor. On any given day, you might:
- Harness AI agents to research high-stakes policy and regulatory issues pertaining to Perplexity.
- Build automated platforms for harvesting, prioritizing, and patenting Perplexity's inventions, in collaboration with our AI researchers and intellectual property attorneys.
- Work hands-on with our Legal team and outside counsel in support of high-tech litigation matters in U.S. federal court.
- Engineer privacy and compliance systems that efficiently scale with our growing portfolio of frontier AI products (such as Comet and Computer).
- Contribute to regulatory filings and responses that require impeccable command of AI technology, Perplexity's own systems, and the broader policy landscape.
- Embed with our People team to implement first-party software solutions for recruiting, labor compliance, and performance management.
- Participate in meetings with Capitol Hill, executive branch officials, international partners, and civil society as a subject-matter expert on both AI technology and policy.
The above is a small sampling of activities; no two days will be the same, and your work will take you to all corners of our company. You'll interact each day with Perplexity's senior leaders, who will come to rely on you as a creative problem solver for simple and complex matters alike.
Who we're looking for:
No single profile defines our ideal candidate for this role. Here are some examples of people who might thrive here:
- Exceptionally talented early-career engineers (new grads welcome) who are (1) well-read in law, tech policy, or economics, and (2) wish to grow in both technical and non-technical disciplines.