# Member of Technical Staff

**Company:** [Perplexity](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/perplexity)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Security Engineering
**Salary:** $220k – $405k/yr
**Skills:** ai security, Threat Modeling, systems security, web security, program analysis, software security, Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust, ai privacy, security benchmarks
**Posted:** 2026-07-17

> Conduct original research on security and privacy for frontier AI systems at Perplexity's Secure Intelligence Institute. Develop threat models, novel defenses, evaluation frameworks for AI-native products, and translate research into production security improvements. Requires PhD and publications at top security conferences.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Develop threat models for emerging attack surfaces in AI-native products, including browser, search, and autonomous agents.
- Identify and analyze security and privacy threats across AI systems, infrastructure, and user-facing products.
- Develop novel defenses, mitigations, and detection mechanisms for security and privacy in AI-native products.
- Build security evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and datasets to measure the effectiveness of different defense mechanisms.
- Partner with Perplexity’s Security Engineering team to translate state of the art research into shipped security features and hardened system architectures.
- Collaborate with top-tier academic and industry researchers in SII's external research network.
- Publish findings at premier venues and contribute to the broader security research community.

## Qualifications
- Hold a PhD (or equivalent research experience) in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with a primary focus on security and/or privacy.
- Experience publishing at top security conferences (IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, NDSS) demonstrating original, impactful research contributions.
- Deep expertise in one or more of: security of agentic systems, systems security, web and applications security, program analysis, and software security.
- Proficiency in Python (bonus points for TypeScript, Go, and/or Rust).
- Ability to operate with high independence, willing to dive in and take ownership, and comfortable in a fast-paced environment where research directly informs product.
- Clear and concise communication, translating complex attack narratives into actionable insights for engineering and leadership.

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