---
title: 'Commercial Counsel/Senior Counsel at Perplexity'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-counsel-senior-counsel-perplexity-san-francisco-k380fepz6jj9'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-20'
---

# Commercial Counsel/Senior Counsel at Perplexity

- **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $200k–$290k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-09-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-20
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity/09a2f0e5-c38c-49ee-a5af-9a179e137a44

## Job description

Perplexity is looking for a commercially minded attorney to join our Legal team. In this role, you’ll own the full commercial legal lifecycle. You will draft, negotiate, and close a wide range of agreements across partnerships, procurement, infrastructure, and licensing. You will build scalable legal infrastructure and enable the business to move quickly without unacceptable risk.

You’ll work closely with teams across the business, including product, engineering, security, finance, and sales to close deals, strengthen our data security and compliance posture, and serve as a trusted advisor on the AI-specific legal questions that come with operating at the frontier of this technology. The ideal candidate brings deep experience negotiating a wide range of commercial technology agreements, including infrastructure and compute procurement agreements, a strong command of data privacy and security frameworks, and the practical judgment to make principled risk calls independently. This is a high-impact, hands-on role for someone who thrives in fast-paced environments, knows how to be a true partner to the business without being a bottleneck, and is excited to help build a best-in-class legal function at one of the most consequential AI companies in the world.

## Responsibilities

- Lead end-to-end drafting, review, and negotiation of commercial agreements, including MSAs, SaaS and API agreements, DPAs, partnership and reseller agreements, strategic collaboration and co-marketing agreements, procurement and vendor contracts, technology and infrastructure agreements, and IP licensing arrangements.
- Serve as a primary legal partner across the business, providing fast, practical, and business-aligned counsel that accelerates deal velocity without compromising on risk Management.
- Provide strategic counsel on legal risks across AI infrastructure, compute, partnerships, and enterprise deployments as the company scales.
- Advise on AI-specific legal considerations in commercial agreements, including acceptable use, data retention and training restrictions, output liability, and evolving regulatory requirements (e.g., EU AI Act, CCPA/CPRA, GDPR).
- Build and maintain scalable legal infrastructure—contract templates, negotiation playbooks, fallback positions, and tools (e.g., CLM, self-serve workflows)—to support high-volume deal flow and reduce friction in the contracting cycle.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Security, Finance, and Compliance teams to surface and address legal risk early, particularly on data use, enterprise integrations, and customer-specific compliance requirements.
- Monitor the evolving regulatory landscape for enterprise AI and SaaS products and translate emerging requirements into practical contractual and policy guidance for internal stakeholders.

## Qualifications

- JD and in good standing with an active U.S. state bar membership.
- At least 5+ years of law firm and/or in-house experience, with a track record of drafting and negotiating complex commercial technology agreements.
- Strong business acumen and ability to partner effectively with sales, product, engineering, and executive teams.
- Deep familiarity with data privacy and security frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2, HIPAA) and experience negotiating DPAs and related compliance agreements.
- Prior experience with infrastructure agreements is strongly preferred, including compute procurement (e.g., GPU capacity and cloud/neocloud agreements, colocation, and related SLA and acceptance terms).
- Ability to communicate clearly with business and technical audiences and effectively translate legal concepts for non-lawyers.
- Hands-on attitude to tackle projects large and small, low-ego approach to working across the organization.
- Positive collaborative attitude, comfort with ambiguity and a fast pace, high level of integrity, and intellectual curiosity about AI technology and how these products work.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

Title and Pay dependent on YOE (Counsel or Senior Counsel)

## 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. [research.perplexity.ai](https://research.perplexity.ai/)

## Other roles at Perplexity

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- [Perplexity Research Fellowship](https://feeny.ai/job/perplexity-research-fellowship-perplexity-san-francisco-0es9v2neb95e) — San Francisco, CA
- [Consumer Support Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/consumer-support-specialist-perplexity-united-states-0hqy6w22e87q) — United States
- [Sales Leader, Sales Development, Enterprise](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-leader-sales-development-enterprise-perplexity-san-francisco-d50x3nstzfmz) — San Francisco, CA
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- [Engineering Manager (API Platform)](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-api-platform-perplexity-san-francisco-m5zabzwvyg4n) — San Francisco, CA
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- [Senior Cinematographer, Brand Studio](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-cinematographer-brand-studio-perplexity-san-francisco-2fyy35sdtdh1) — San Francisco, CA