Strategic Finance Lead (Artificial Intelligence)

• We are seeking a Strategic Finance Lead to help lead the economics of our AI products. In this role, you will be a key partner to our product, inference, and data teams, providing financial expertise to optimize model spend and drive pricing and margin decisions
• In this role, you’ll develop deep expertise in the unit economics of AI products, from per-request serving cost to consolidated product-level margin across our portfolio. You’ll build the models that inform Perplexity’s pricing, packaging, and model-deployment decisions, own the product-margin methodology that reconciles revenue and inference cost from production data, and translate complex model economics into clear financial narratives for leadership
• This is a high-impact role for someone who thrives at the intersection of finance and AI product strategy, and who is energized by building frameworks from scratch in a fast-moving environment
• Finance lead for inference and model spend, including budgeting, monthly forecasting, variance analysis, and financial plan maintenance
• Build and maintain product-margin models across the product portfolio, reconciling revenue, serving cost, and gross margin from production usage data
• Develop deep expertise in model provider contracts, pricing structures, and cost drivers, and surface optimization opportunities across the model portfolio and routing mix
• Serve as subject matter expert for product unit economics, owning source of truth on cost per request, margin by product and tier, and customer-segment and feature-level economics
• Own the consolidated model-cost forecast, translating product roadmaps and model transitions into forward-looking spend and margin trajectories
• Analyze the margin impact of pricing, packaging, and model-deployment decisions, distilled into a framework for product and pricing strategy
• Partner closely with product, inference, and data engineering to understand how usage and serving cost scale, and translate those technical dynamics into financial frameworks

Preferred experience

• Sound commercial judgment across pricing, packaging, discounting, and the tradeoffs between growth and margin
• Attention to detail and patience for getting to the source of truth on complex and interconnected usage, revenue, and cost data
• Background in AI, ML, or consumption-based business models with complex cost structures
• Exceptional analytical skills with an ability to synthesize data into compelling insights and develop complex financial operating models
• A bias toward action, strong work ethic, and experience driving operational outcomes under tight timelines
• Comfort working cross-functionally and are adept at communicating complex financial information to non-finance audiences
• A proven track record of partnering with technical and product teams to drive financial optimization initiatives
• Extraordinary problem-solving and critical thinking abilities to develop new frameworks for assessing product margin and unit economics in a rapidly evolving industry
• 4+ years of experience in strategic finance, private equity, growth equity, consulting, or investment banking, preferably with software or AI product experience
• Deep expertise in usage-based pricing, subscription economics, and gross-margin and COGS attribution by customer and model family
• Experience in AI or LLM product financial management, including direct work with model providers or inference platforms
• Proficiency with financial modeling tools
• Experience with model serving economics, including how latency, throughput, and token usage flow through to margin performance