Perplexity seeks a Member of Data Staff (Analytics Engineer) to join the team in San Francisco for a full-time position building foundational data systems. This role suits an experienced data or analytics engineer who wants to design scalable data infrastructure for both human and AI consumption.
Role Overview
Perplexity is hiring a Member of Data Staff (Analytics Engineer) in San Francisco to establish the data foundation for an AI-native organization. The person in this role will design core data models, pipelines, semantic layers, and governance practices that power company-wide decision-making.
Key Responsibilities
Design and maintain high-quality data models, marts, and pipelines to ensure fast and reliable analysis.
Manage warehouse architecture, permissions, performance, cost, and operational hygiene.
Establish documentation, semantic context, metadata, and lineage so AI systems can query data correctly.
Define and champion dbt patterns, dimensional modeling practices, and testing processes.
Formulate data governance standards for access, ownership, lineage, and sensitive data handling.
Implement security and privacy controls in partnership with engineering, security, legal, and finance teams.
Build AI-assisted workflows to detect data issues, automate testing, and reduce manual maintenance.
Improve internal productivity by streamlining development for data scientists and stakeholders.
Collaborate across departments to translate analytical requirements into durable data systems.
Evaluate tooling decisions and manage build-versus-buy tradeoffs.
Requirements
Six or more years of professional experience as an analytics engineer, data engineer, data scientist, or related role.
Advanced SQL expertise for managing correctness, performance, and complex queries.
Hands-on production experience with dbt or a similar transformation framework, including dimensional modeling and data contracts.
Demonstrated history of building, maintaining, and debugging production data pipelines.
Direct involvement with warehouse administration, performance tuning, and cost management.
Familiarity with data governance principles encompassing access controls, privacy, and lineage.
Experience utilizing AI tools to accelerate development, documentation, and workflow automation.
Ability to transform ambiguous requirements into trusted data assets with autonomy.
Nice to Have
Snowflake administration, optimization, or cost management experience.
Familiarity with role-based access control, personally identifiable information handling, or privacy reviews.
Experience with Databricks or modern data infrastructure.
Background in building semantic layers, metrics layers, metadata systems, or data catalogs.
Python programming skills for data tooling, automation, or orchestration.
Prior startup experience as an early analytics or data engineer.
Skills and Tools
SQL
dbt
Snowflake
Databricks
Python
Salary and Benefits
Salary range of $175K to $330K
Equity offerings included
About the Company
Perplexity builds AI search and discovery tools for users who expect more from their information platforms.
How to Apply
Interested candidates should apply directly on the official company careers page.
