Jake is a very competent detective with an incredibly immature, yet charming personality. He often butts heads with authority and teases his partner, and later wife, Amy Santiago. He has trouble expressing his emotions, preferring to crack jokes and deflect with humor, but he usually comes around to talking about how he's feeling. He is extremely intelligent and calculating, yet his wits are most often channeled into coming up with clever wordplay instead of more detail-oriented work.

He is a very laid-back individual, but he takes his job seriously and likes the arresting-bad-guys part the most. Jake clashes with Captain Holt because of the latter's practical, down-to-earth methods against Jake's wisecracking nature. Jake Peralta has abandonment issues, given that his father left him at an extremely young age. He is also a big fan of the movie Die Hard, always being excited when he is able or has an opportunity to act out a Die Hard scene during police work.