Staff Software Engineer - Authentication & - ZipRecruiter : Job Details

Job DescriptionJob Description

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 seeking a Staff Authentication & Engineer to join our innovative team revolutionizing internet search and interaction. You'll tackle distributed, high-scale challenges while ensuring seamless user experiences for millions of daily queries. Your work will directly support our mission to revolutionize secure, scalable access management for enterprise customers and individual users alike.

Responsibilities

• Design and build robust authentication systems for Next.js-based web applications, ensuring low-latency performance at scale.
• Architect secure, modern authentication flows using OAuth 2.0, JWT, and passwordless/email providers.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with frontend, backend, security, and mobile teams to unify authentication across platforms.
• Evolve access control systems, including role-based permissions and ACLs for customer-specific resource management.
• Optimize authentication performance and reliability while maintaining strict security standards.
• Own critical components of our authentication stack, from prototyping to production deployment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of web development experience, including 3+ years building authentication systems.
• Expertise in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Next.js, and NextAuth.js.
• Deep knowledge of OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and modern security protocols.
• Experience designing high-scale architectures (100k+ requests/sec) with cloud platforms like AWS.
• Proficiency with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) for auth-related data.
• Strong problem-solving skills and commitment to code simplicity/performance.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with distributed systems or Go/Python backend development.
• Familiarity with enterprise auth standards (SSO, SCIM, SAML).
• Background in role-based access control (RBAC) for large user bases.
• Mobile authentication implementation experience.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $250,000 - $300,000.

Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including, experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.Equity: In addition to the base salary, equity may be part of the total compensation package. Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents. Includes a 401(k) plan.