# Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning Research Engineer)

**Company:** [Perplexity](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/perplexity)
**Location:** Berlin
**Work mode:** On-site
**Employment type:** Full Time
**Category:** Software
**Department:** Other
**Listed:** 2026-04-03

[View and apply on Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/member-of-technical-staff-machine-learning-research-engineer-1a3df802-9238-4827-ab1f-12a9d1e4b81c)

## Job description

Perplexity is seeking an experienced Machine Learning Research Engineer to help build the next generation of advanced search technologies, with a focus on retrieval and ranking.

**Responsibilities**

-   Relentlessly push search quality forward — through models, data, tools, or any other leverage available
    
-   Architect and build core components of the search platform and model stack
    
-   Design, train, and optimize large-scale deep learning models using frameworks like PyTorch, leveraging distributed training (e.g., PyTorch Distributed, DeepSpeed, FSDP) and hardware acceleration, with a focus on retrieval and ranking models
    
-   Conduct advanced research in representation learning, including contrastive learning, multilingual, and multimodal modeling for search and retrieval
    
-   Deploy models — from boosting algorithms to LLMs — in a scalable and performant way
    
-   Build and optimize RAG pipelines for grounding and answer generation
    
-   Collaborate with Data, AI, Infrastructure, and Product teams to ensure fast and high-quality delivery
    

**Qualifications**

-   Deep understanding of search and retrieval systems, including quality evaluation principles and metrics
    
-   Proven track record with large-scale search or recommender systems
    
-   Strong proficiency with PyTorch, including experience in distributed training techniques and performance optimization for large models
    
-   Expertise in representation learning, including contrastive learning and embedding space alignment for multilingual and multimodal applications
    
-   Strong publication record in AI/ML conferences or workshops (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, CVPR, SIGIR)
    
-   Self-driven, with a strong sense of ownership and execution
    
-   Minimum of 3 years (preferably 5+) working on search, recommender systems, or closely related research areas

## Other open roles at Perplexity

- [Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, AI Policy and Strategic Initiatives)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/member-of-technical-staff-software-engineer-ai-policy-and-strategic-initiatives-1056951e-8a42-4330-b72c-90162b3cd1c9) — San Francisco
- [University Recruiter](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/university-recruiter-9ffca709-f4e1-40e7-81bf-270ff73c7a50) — San Francisco
- [Content Designer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/content-designer-0807f77b-4499-498a-b2bf-3cd44d965138) — San Francisco
- [Member of Technical Staff (GTM Engineer, Growth)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/member-of-technical-staff-gtm-engineer-growth-3b523d3a-23bd-4887-8e3c-239d14d66b06) — San Francisco
- [Procurement Lead](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/perplexity/procurement-lead-ba95ea8c-9aad-4152-925c-df08d6a90c0f) — San Francisco

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*Source: [Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com), the job board for space, defense, AI, robotics and frontier-tech companies.*