Strategic Finance Lead, Perplexity AI

• 4+ years of experience in strategic finance or FP&A at a high-growth technology company, plus 2+ years in investment banking at a top-tier firm
• Strong financial modeling skills and the ability to translate complex operating data into clear, decision-ready analysis
• A track record of partnering effectively with engineering or technical teams to drive financial outcomes
• Comfort communicating complex financial concepts to non-finance audiences across the company
• Bias for action, first-principles thinking, and an ability to make progress in ambiguous environments
• Excitement about working in a fast-paced, hyper-growth setting and adapting quickly as priorities shift
• Strong process discipline, business judgment, and cross-functional communication skills
• Genuine interest in AI infrastructure and the cost dynamics of large-scale model serving and training

Desirable

• Perplexity is seeking a Strategic Finance - Infrastructure Lead to provide financial leadership over our cloud service provider (CSP) spend, compute and model capacity planning, and broader infrastructure economics
• This person will be a core partner to our engineering, infrastructure, and product teams, bringing financial rigor and judgment to the most consequential cost decisions the company makes
• You’ll build the models that underpin our capacity investments, own the day-to-day CSP and model provider relationships, and help shape how we plan for infrastructure as the business scales
• The role partners closely with Accounting and Engineering leadership to keep our compute and CSP strategy tightly aligned with the company’s financial trajectory
• Capacity Planning & Infrastructure FP&A
• Build and maintain multi-year capacity forecasts and scenario models across CPU, GPU, and accelerator footprints
• Partner with Strategic Finance leadership on long-horizon capacity decisions, including reserved/committed structures and build-out sequencing
• Lead ROI and trade-off analysis for new platforms, hardware generations, and efficiency initiatives
• Translate engineering and product roadmaps into capacity requirements and the cost envelope to support them
• Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Financial Management
• Own day-to-day management for all core infrastructure spend, including the monthly bill, variance analysis, and forecasting
• Drive efficiency and optimization initiatives with engineering and infrastructure teams
• Build cost-driver models that explain spend movements and surface the levers behind them
• Support CSP rate and commit negotiations with rate analysis, benchmarking, and contract modeling
• Maintain deep working knowledge of CSP contract terms, pricing structures, discount programs, and optimization opportunities
• Partner with Accounting on contract operationalization, accrual accuracy, and compliance
• Inference Cost Allocation & Unit Economics Support
• Own management and forecasting of inference costs end-to-end, including product unit economics
• Partner with Strategic Finance and executive leadership on scenario analysis to understand core unit economics and product-mix view and it’s impact on strategy and financial statements
• Support training-run budgeting, tracking, and ROI analysis