Member of Technical Staff (Offensive Security Engineer)

The role

This person will plan and execute red team operations, penetration tests, and attack simulations. They will work on cloud infrastructure, web and mobile applications, AI/ML pipelines, and the corporate environment.

What you will do

• Plan and execute red team and purple team engagements across cloud infrastructure, endpoints, and application surfaces
• Conduct continuous penetration testing of web applications, APIs, mobile clients, cloud infrastructure, and internal services
• Assess AI/ML-specific attack surfaces including prompt injection, model exfiltration, agent abuse, tool-use exploitation, and MCP security boundaries
• Develop and maintain custom offensive tooling, exploits, and automation
• Perform open-scope adversary simulations to test detection and response capabilities
• Drive threat modeling sessions with engineering teams
• Deliver clear, actionable findings to technical and executive audiences
• Partner with engineering to validate remediations
• Contribute to the security of CI/CD pipelines, supply chain integrity, and secrets management
• Stay current on emerging attack techniques and vulnerability research

Required qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in offensive security, red teaming, or penetration testing
• Deep technical expertise in at least two of: cloud security (AWS/GCP/Azure), web/API application security, Kubernetes and container security, macOS/Linux endpoint security, network penetration testing
• Track record of discovering impactful vulnerabilities or developing novel attack techniques in production environments
• Strong programming and scripting skills in Python, Go, or similar languages
• Experience with industry-standard offensive tools (Burp Suite, Cobalt Strike / Sliver / Mythic, Metasploit, BloodHound, nuclei, etc.)
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Experience assessing AI/ML systems, LLM applications, or agentic workflows for security vulnerabilities

Nice to have

• Published security research
• Conference talks (DEF CON, Black Hat, BSides)
• CVE credits
• Meaningful bug bounty contributions

About the company

Perplexity is seeking a highly skilled, experienced and hands-on Offensive Security Engineer to join our dynamic security team.