Perplexity

Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking Quality - Search)

Belgrade, US

Role snapshot

Perplexity is hiring a Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking Quality - Search) on a full-time basis. This is a role based in Belgrade, US. The listing highlights Search.

Company
Perplexity
Location
Belgrade, US
Job type
Full-time
Posted
Oct 2, 2026

Who this role suits

The listing does not state a required experience level here. Read the requirements in the description below and apply if they match your background.

How to prepare your application

  • Check your résumé against the listed skills (Search) and give each one a concrete example: what you built or achieved, not just that you used it.
  • Match your résumé to the requirements in the description, using the same wording where it is honest to do so.
  • Prepare a short example for each requirement you meet, and be ready to explain any you only partly meet.
  • Read what Perplexity publishes about its product or team, so you can say clearly why this role and this company.

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About the role

Perplexity is seeking an experienced Machine Learning Engineer to improve search quality across the middle and later stages of ranking. We are looking for a strong ranking generalist who can own ambiguous problems end to end and brings exceptional depth in either neural ranking or production ranking systems.

Responsibilities

  • Push search quality forward through models, data, evaluation, infrastructure, or any other leverage available.

  • Own ranking-quality problems end to end: define the evaluation, identify the bottleneck, build the solution, and ship it safely.

  • Train and evaluate retrieval, ranking, and classification models, including neural and LLM-based approaches where appropriate.

  • Build and operate ranking infrastructure, including feature computation, low-latency inference, multi-stage cascades, deployment, and monitoring.

  • Make sound trade-offs across quality, latency, reliability, cost, and engineering complexity.

  • Collaborate across Data, AI, Infrastructure, and Product while retaining ownership of the final quality outcome.

Qualifications

  • Deep understanding of search or recommender systems and their evaluation.

  • Proven ownership of a large-scale production ranking system or a substantial class of quality problems.

  • Strong machine learning and software engineering skills across data, models, serving, and monitoring.

  • Ability to drive ambiguous, cross-team problems without continuous task decomposition.

  • Exceptional depth in either modern neural ranking methods or low-latency ranking systems and runtime.