Perplexity Research Fellowship

The Perplexity Research Fellowship is a full time research program at Perplexity for early career people from technical and quantitative fields. Fellows work on AI research topics such as multi agent planning, continual learning, pretraining and human AI interaction.

There are two tracks. The Predoctoral Research Fellow track is for early career talent in technical or quantitative disciplines. The Postdoctoral Research Fellow track is for people who recently completed a PhD. The fellowship lasts 3 months, full time, and can be extended or turned into a full time research role for top performers.

Pay is a $180,000 annualized base salary for predoctoral fellows and $220,000 for postdoctoral fellows. Fellows count as short term employees, not interns. The work is in person at the San Francisco, Palo Alto or New York City office, and Perplexity offers immigration and visa sponsorship support based on individual circumstances.

Perplexity says it is looking for people from outside traditional AI research, for example physics, cognitive science, quantitative finance or theoretical mathematics. It wants strong mathematical foundations, technical depth in your own field, clear communication and a real drive to build useful AI systems. You may be new to AI.

Applications go through the Perplexity portal and are reviewed on a rolling basis. Submissions received by September 30, 2026 get priority, with priority for the November 2026 and January 2027 cohorts. Applications stay open until positions are filled. Selected candidates are contacted for a first conversation and then a series of technical interviews.