Engineering Manager, (Multimodal)
Perplexity · San Francisco
About this role
## Engineering Manager, (Multimodal) ### About the role In 2026, we launched **Computer**, the defining product for the new era of agentic AI. The **Multimodal** team builds the experiences and infrastructure that move AI interaction beyond touch and text—**realtime voice, vision, and the platform systems behind them**. As Engineering Manager for Multimodal, you’ll lead the team building **realtime voice and multimodal experiences** across Perplexity. You’ll hire and develop engineers, set technical direction, and drive new products at the intersection of **voice, vision, and agents**. ### Key responsibilities - Lead the team building realtime voice and multimodal experiences across Perplexity, taking new products from **first prototype to production launch**. - Own the team’s roadmap: decide which voice and vision experiences to build next and what infrastructure they need. - Hire and develop engineers, giving them ownership of meaningful technical problems and feedback to grow. - Shape the architecture behind the full voice experience—from a user speaking into a device to models, tools, and agents responding. - Lead systems that turn live conversations into action, connecting voice models to tools, agents, and long-running tasks. - Guide the team through **latency, reliability, and scaling** challenges of live voice (including session recovery and performance under load). - Partner with SDK, client, infrastructure, and model teams to turn new audio and vision capabilities into experiences across our apps. - Use user feedback and production performance to improve the experience after launch and decide where the team should invest next. ### Qualifications - Experience managing engineering teams (hiring, coaching, performance management). - Strong software engineering background in **backend** or **distributed systems**. - Experience designing and operating production services in rapidly scaling environments on **AWS** (or similar cloud infrastructure). - Track record of leading teams to ship complex projects in a fast-moving environment. - Strong product judgment and ability to translate user problems into clear technical priorities. - Clear communication and ability to work effectively across teams. - Experience with **Rust, Python, Go**, or similar languages (we primarily use **Rust and Python**). - Genuine interest in and adoption of AI products; willingness to learn quickly. ### Nice to have - Experience with realtime media systems: voice, audio streaming, **WebRTC**, or low-latency transport. - Experience integrating LLMs, speech models, or computer vision into production systems. - Experience with agent frameworks, tool-calling architectures, or sandboxed execution environments. - Experience leading projects across backend services, client SDKs, and user-facing applications. - Time spent leading a team at a fast-growing startup or in a high-ownership environment.
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