--- title: 'Applied AI Architect, Perplexity Computer at Perplexity' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ai-architect-perplexity-computer-perplexity-san-francisco-zq4agynv4s7p' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-08' --- # Applied AI Architect, Perplexity Computer at Perplexity - **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $200k–$250k - **Employment:** full-time - **Posted:** 2026-08-26 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-08 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/4fba58de-a168-4948-9d82-a7d4b38f45f2 ## Job description Perplexity is seeking an Applied AI Architect to help our customers turn Perplexity Computer into working solutions that drive measurable impact. This role is ideal for technical, consultative professionals who have led complex software implementations and can move comfortably between customer discovery, solution design, hands-on delivery, and executive communication. ## About the role Perplexity Computer is a new class of AI system that navigates tools, interacts with applications, and completes multi-step workflows end to end. Our customers are using Computer to transform work that traditional software has not been able to address. Applied AI Architects work directly with customers across presales, onboarding, adoption, and strategic engagements. You will uncover the real business problem, determine what Computer can credibly support, design and configure the workflow, and lead the engagement to a clear outcome. This is a hands-on, customer-facing role at the intersection of solutions architecture, technical consulting, and program delivery. You will work closely with Sales and Customer Success while serving as a quality filter for requests that require Product or Engineering. ## What you'll do - Lead technical discovery. Work with customer business leaders, technical teams, account executives, and customer success managers to understand the users, current workflow, desired outcome, constraints, and decision-makers. - Design credible solutions. Map how people, data, tools, approvals, permissions, and decisions interact, then determine how Computer can support the workflow. - Support complex opportunities. Partner with account executives on technical deal strategy, demos, proofs of value, architecture and security coordination, and engagement scoping. - Drive value-backed consumption. Identify high-value, repeatable workflows; define the expected business outcomes and usage patterns; and partner with Sales and Customer Success to move customers from technical validation to sustained production use and expansion. - Build hands-on. Configure, prototype, test, and iterate on Computer skills and workflows, including connectors, permissions, and adjacent tooling. - Accelerate onboarding and adoption. Provide second-level technical consultation to customer success managers and deliver bounded technical work when customer needs exceed standard Customer Success coverage. - Run strategic engagements. Establish scope, customer commitments, milestones, success criteria, working cadence, and exit criteria, then lead the work through closure. - Improve technical escalation. Validate product and engineering needs and produce decision-ready requests with clear evidence, constraints, impact, and acceptance criteria. - Turn every engagement into leverage. Convert repeated customer needs into reusable workflows, implementation patterns, demos, guidance, and product feedback. ## What we're looking for The strongest Applied AI Architects combine technical depth, consultative problem solving, and disciplined engagement delivery. You should be comfortable working hands-on with the product, advising customer executives, and managing the details required to deliver a successful outcome. Must-haves - 5+ years in a customer-facing technical role such as solutions architecture, senior sales engineering, AI implementation, forward deployed work, technical consulting, or technical program leadership. - Proven consultative discovery skills. You can turn an ambiguous request into a clear business problem, technical approach, and delivery plan. - Hands-on technical fluency. You are comfortable with APIs, integrations, authentication, identity, permissions, connectors, data flows, and technical troubleshooting. - Experience delivering complex implementations. You have managed scope, stakeholders, milestones, risk, expectations, and closure. - Strong solution judgment. You can distinguish education, configuration, implementation, support, product, and engineering problems and recommend the right path. - Commercial and consumption awareness. You can connect solution design and technical decisions to time to value, usage, credit consumption, customer economics, and expansion potential. - Executive-credible communication. You can explain technical trade-offs to senior decision-makers while working effectively with practitioners and engineers. - High agency in ambiguity. You can establish direction without waiting for perfect requirements, challenge weak assumptions, and make thoughtful decisions quickly. - AI-native working style. You use frontier models and AI tools regularly and have developed strong intuition for what current systems can and cannot do reliably. Nice-to-haves - Experience deploying agents or multi-step LLM workflows in complex enterprise environments. - Experience with Computer, MCP, enterprise identity, security, permissions, or workflow orchestration. - Experience in regulated or workflow-intensive industries such as legal, financial services, healthcare, or technology. - Prior forward deployed engineering, Applied AI, deployment strategist, solutions architecture, or technical consulting experience at an AI or enterprise software company. - A track record of turning customer implementations into reusable technical assets or product improvements. ## About Perplexity ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Perplexity builds an AI-powered answer engine that delivers accurate, real-time answers to any question, serving curious minds and professionals who demand precision and speed. - **Entity Type**: Private (total funding $1.7B across 16 rounds) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: AI-powered search and knowledge retrieval, Software Development - **Target customers**: B2C (general users), B2B (enterprise API customers), and power users seeking reliable information - **Mission**: “AI for people who expect more – more accuracy, more agency, more signal, less noise.” ## Products & Services - **Perplexity AI (Free Tier)**: Real-time conversational search engine that synthesizes web results with citations, accessible via web and mobile app. *Type*: SaaS - **Perplexity Pro**: Subscription offering enhanced features such as advanced AI models, multimodal search, and increased usage limits. *Type*: SaaS (subscription) - **Perplexity API Platform**: Enables developers to integrate Perplexity’s search and reasoning capabilities into their own applications. *Type*: API - **Perplexity Browser Extension**: Brings AI-powered search directly into the browser for quick answers without leaving the page. *Type*: Browser extension ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available in provided sources (prior reports indicate ~$9B valuation as of 2024, but not confirmed in this data set) - **Key Metric**: Total funding $1.7B (16 rounds); annual revenue ~$50M (LinkedIn estimate) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not explicitly listed in provided search results; widely known investors include IVP, NEA, Jeff Bezos, and others (not sourced here) - **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 11.3% YoY to 1,152 employees; operates in 54 countries; LinkedIn followers grew 131.8% yearly to >1.6M; active hiring across 48+ open roles including AI Research, Engineering, and Go-to-Market teams ## Competitive Advantages - **Real-time, cited answers**: Unlike traditional chatbots, Perplexity grounds answers in live web results with transparent sources, building trust and accuracy. - **Multimodal and agentic capabilities**: Continuously pushes frontier research (e.g., query-aware context compression, agents for knowledge work) that differentiates from generic LLM interfaces. - **Vertical integration from research to product**: In-house AI research team tackles open problems unique to Perplexity’s scale, enabling fast iteration on novel methods. - **Strong brand and user base**: Rapid consumer adoption with millions of monthly active users and high engagement. ## Strategic Focus - **Pushing the frontier of search**: Evolving from retrieval services to code generation, agents, and full autonomy in knowledge work. - **Expanding enterprise and API revenue**: Growing B2B footprint with API platform and enterprise solutions. - **Global hiring and office expansion**: Offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York, Austin, Washington D.C., London, Berlin, and Belgrade, with “4 days in office” hybrid model. - **Investing in AI research**: Dedicated research division (Perplexity Research) exploring reasoning, agents, and systems to redefine how people navigate the internet. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & Environment**: “Thoughtful support” culture with emphasis on craftsmanship, ownership, entrepreneurship, scholarship, and partnership. Hybrid schedule (4 days in-office) based on location. - **Perks**: Daily catered meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner in office), office snacks, ride home program, commuter benefits, home office reimbursement, fitness classes, gym memberships. - **Compensation & Benefits**: Competitive salary and equity packages; retirement plans with company match; flexible PTO; holiday shutdown between Christmas and New Year; 12 weeks paid bonding leave; comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance. - **Relocation & Visa Support**: Relocation assistance and visa/green card sponsorship for eligible roles. Partners with immigration firm to support the process. - **Engineering Excellence**: “Technical assessment for relevant roles”; values hands-on contribution, broad skill sets, and merit-based evaluation. Frequent Tech Talks and exposure to greenfield AI research problems. ## Sources 1. [perplexity.ai/hub/careers](https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/careers) 2. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity) 3. [perplexity.ai](https://www.perplexity.ai/) 4. [linkedin.com/company/perplexity-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/perplexity-ai) 5. 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