Sales Leader, Perplexity
Sales Development, Enterprise
$220-320k
+ Equity
Conversational AI-powered search tool
Be an early applicant
Conversational AI-powered search tool
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$220-320k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To advance the way people discover and share information.
Role
Who you are
- This role is ideal for a creative, agile sales development leader who knows how to scale through managers without losing touch with buyers or frontline execution
- We are looking for someone who brings original ideas, moves rapidly from insight to execution, and knows when to scale, adapt, or stop an approach
- 8+ years in SaaS sales or business development, including 3+ years in sales development leadership
- Proven track record of building or scaling a multi-team pipeline generation organization in a high-growth environment, with measurable improvements in qualified pipeline, conversion, and productivity
- Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, and develop managers, build accountability through leaders, and improve performance without becoming the team's day-to-day manager
- Creative approach to pipeline generation, with examples of original campaigns, messaging, channels, or workflows you tested and translated into repeatable results
- Demonstrated agility in ambiguous, fast-changing environments; able to make sound decisions with incomplete information, learn quickly, and change course when evidence warrants it
- Strong commercial judgment and experience aligning sales development priorities with enterprise sales cycles, buyer needs, and revenue goals; prior closing experience strongly preferred
- Data-driven operating style with experience in funnel analysis, capacity planning, forecasting pipeline contribution, and distinguishing meaningful outcomes from vanity metrics
- Hands-on experience with modern prospecting tools, AI-native sales workflows, and CRM systems such as Salesforce, with a clear point of view on where automation improves execution and where human judgment matters
- Exceptional written and verbal communication; able to align senior cross-functional stakeholders and translate strategy into clear priorities for managers and their teams
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
What the job involves
- Perplexity is seeking a Sales Leader to build and scale our enterprise BDR organization
- In this second-line leadership role, you will inherit a team of Business Development Representatives, hire, coach, and lead BDR managers, equipping them to build high-performing teams that generate qualified pipeline for our Account Executives
- In the near term you are expected to be hands on with BDRs and in the weeds
- You will set the strategy, develop the team, and build an org that is adaptable to keep pace with the company quickly evolving
- You will build what works for Perplexity, not simply import a playbook from your last company
- Hire, onboard, and develop BDRs and BDR managers, establishing clear expectations for team performance, coaching quality, hiring, and talent development
- Own the organization's contribution to sourced pipeline and qualified opportunities, holding managers accountable for pipeline quality and conversion, not activity volume alone
- Set the sales development strategy across inbound and outbound motions, partnering with Sales leadership on coverage, capacity planning, account prioritization, and resource allocation
- Build a culture of creative experimentation across targeting, vertical messaging, channels, campaigns, and AI-native workflows; give managers room to test ideas, measure results, and scale what works
- Lead with agility as products, buyer behavior, and business priorities evolve, translating new information into clear decisions and fast execution without creating unnecessary process
- Coach managers to build vertical fluency and product expertise on their teams so BDRs can engage credible buyers and connect the right Perplexity offering to each account
- Establish the management operating rhythm: manager 1:1s, pipeline and conversion reviews, coaching calibration, talent reviews, and a consistent performance scoreboard across teams
- Partner with Sales, Marketing, RevOps, and Strategic Finance on campaign strategy, lead quality, routing, handoff standards, source attribution, headcount planning, and compensation design
- Stay close to calls, messaging, and buyer feedback to identify patterns and remove systemic blockers while empowering managers to own day-to-day execution
- Build a strong leadership bench and internal talent pipeline, developing BDRs into future Account Executives and high-performing managers into broader leadership roles
Our take
As AI continues to drive changes in both business operations and day-to-day lives, Perplexity delivers an intelligent search engine powered by conversational AI, to improve search outcomes and "unlock the power of knowledge" for all.
Reaching impressive heights of 22M monthly visits, Perplexity's "ask anything" method of search is clearly a popular one. And what sets it apart from other search engines is in its answers, which are concise and fully cited, responding to the user query rather than simply providing a place in which they can scroll to find it themselves.
The company has raised substantial funding, with contributions from former execs at companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Quora, demonstrating the interest that it has drummed up in the space. Having doubled its annual recurring revenue between 2023 and 24, this investment has allowed Perplexity to continue building out its product, and accelerate growth into the future.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Sep 2025
$200m
LATE VC
Jul 2025
$100m
LATE VC
Total funding: $1.8bn
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Aravind Srinivas
(Co-Founder, President & CEO)Former Research Scientist at OpenAI, who has interned in Research at Google and Deep Mind. Obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Denis Yarats
(Co-Founder & CTO)Prior to co-founding Perplexity in 2022, Denis was an AI Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research, a Staff ML Engineer at Quora, and a Software Development Engineer at Microsoft.
Johnny Ho
(Co-Founder & CSO)Previously a Quantitative Trader at Tower Research Capital, and Engineer at Quora.
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