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Security Engineering

Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Cybersecurity Products)

Perplexity logoPerplexity$220,000–$405,000/yrSan FranciscoFull-timePosted today

At its midpoint, $313k/yr, this role pays more than the $205k/yr midpoint for Security Engineering openings today (usual band $172k–$375k/yr).

The full posting

ABOUT THE ROLE

Perplexity is building cybersecurity products where agents do the security work, not just assist with it. Our security team already runs agents on our own environment every day, across finding vulnerabilities, testing our defenses, securing our cloud, and responding to threats. Now we're turning that work into products for customers, and we expect those products to span application security, offensive testing, cloud security, detection and response, and areas we haven't picked yet.

We're looking for a hands-on Software Engineer to build these products end to end, from the security logic and agent workflows to the integrations and product surfaces customers use. You'll ship to design partners and enterprise customers quickly, and you'll work directly with the security engineers who do this work internally, so what we build is grounded in real codebases, real environments, and real attackers.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Build security products from zero to one across domains such as application security, penetration testing and offensive security, cloud security, and detection and response.
  • Build agents that do real security work: review code and find vulnerabilities, test applications and infrastructure like an attacker, assess cloud configurations, and investigate threats, then validate findings and recommend or apply fixes.
  • Build the systems underneath: multi-tenant services, data pipelines, and secure execution environments that run against customer code, cloud accounts, and telemetry.
  • Build integrations with the tools customers already use: source control and CI/CD, cloud providers, identity providers, security tools, ticketing, and chat.
  • Ship the product surfaces customers use: APIs, dashboards, onboarding, and workflows that fit how security and engineering teams actually work.
  • Hold the product to the same standard we hold ourselves: strong tenant isolation, least privilege, safe handling of customer secrets and data, and tight controls on any agent that acts in a customer environment.
  • Define how we measure quality (finding accuracy, false positive rate, exploitability, time to fix, cost) and use it to drive improvements.
  • Work directly with design partners and customers, and help decide which security problems we should build products for next.

QUALIFICATIONS

  • 4+ years of experience as a software engineer building production systems, with meaningful time spent on security products, security data platforms, or security engineering with heavy software development.
  • Proficiency in at least one major programming language (such as Python, Go, TypeScript, or Rust) and experience owning production services end to end.
  • Hands-on depth in at least one security domain, such as application security, penetration testing or offensive security, cloud security, or detection and response, and curiosity to work across the others.
  • Experience integrating with security- or developer-relevant systems such as source control, CI/CD, cloud provider APIs, identity providers, scanners, or SIEMs.
  • Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and building secure, multi-tenant SaaS.
  • Comfortable working directly with customers and shipping pragmatic improvements quickly in an ambiguous, early-stage product area.
  • Bonus: experience building LLM-powered agents, evaluation frameworks, or tool-using automation for security or other high-stakes domains.
  • Bonus: experience at a security product company (AppSec, pentesting, cloud security, detection and response) or on an internal security platform at scale.

Text as Perplexity published it; last compared with the original on 13 Nov 2026.

The application

Your details and CV, then 5 questions (2 written).

Keep these to handCV
  1. 1.
    Will you now or in the future require sponsorship for employment visa status in the United States?Yes or no
  2. 2.
    Are you able to come into the office four days per week?Yes or no
  3. 3.
    What are the most interesting aspects of Perplexity that you are excited to work on?Written answer
  4. 4.
    How do you use AI in your day-to-day work? What are some of the underappreciated benefits and/or pain points of your favorite AI tools?Written answer
  5. 5.
    Exercise Submission (Shared URL)Link

Taken from Perplexity's application form as it stood on 13 Nov 2026.

The employer: Perplexity

Perplexity runs an AI answer engine and the Comet browser; its security hiring covers software security, offensive testing and GRC.

Pay and benefits: Roles with equity in a fast-growing AI search company, across San Francisco, New York, London and Belgrade.

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