Senior C++ Developer - Search Core

Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine founded in December 2022 and growing rapidly as one of the world's leading AI platforms. Perplexity has raised over $1B in venture investment from some of the world's most visionary and successful leaders, including Elad Gil, Daniel Gross, Jeff Bezos, Accel, IVP, NEA, NVIDIA, Samsung, and many more. Our objective is to build accurate, trustworthy AI that powers decision-making for people and assistive AI wherever decisions are being made. Throughout human history, change and innovation have always been driven by curious people. Today, curious people use Perplexity to answer more than 780 million queries every month–a number that's growing rapidly for one simple reason: everyone can be curious. Perplexity is looking for a highly skilled Senior C++ Developer to join our Search Core team. This role is critical to building next-generation search products and technologies. You will help drive key decisions around the architecture, design, and implementation of foundational components in our technical stack. Responsibilities Develop new types of search index storage, including streaming and batch data processing systems in a high-load environment capable of handling billions of pages Build new core search components, including algorithms for efficient retrieval and ranking Push the limits of hardware performance Tackle challenges in multithreading, concurrency, and system-level optimization Optimize subsystems for reliable and consistent data replication within the core search stack Qualifications 10 years of experience developing backend systems using C++ 6 years of experience designing and implementing scalable, high-performance systems in large-scale production environments Knowledge of Python or other scripting languages Passion for writing clean, efficient, and scalable C++ code Strong knowledge of algorithms and data structures, and the ability to apply them effectively Deep understanding of multithreading, including various approaches, challenges, and trade-offs Deep expertise in building high-load, distributed, and hardware-adjacent services Expertise in real-time systems development Preferred Qualifications Experience developing core components of search engines, trading systems, or database systems Familiarity with cloud services, Kubernetes (k8s), and AWS infrastructure

Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine founded in December 2022 and growing rapidly as one of the world's leading AI platforms. Perplexity has raised over $1B in venture investment from some of the world's most visionary and successful leaders, including Elad Gil, Daniel Gross, Jeff Bezos, Accel, IVP, NEA, NVIDIA, Samsung, and many more. Our objective is to build accurate, trustworthy AI that powers decision-making for people and assistive AI wherever decisions are being made.