Sales Systems Engineer, Enterprise Operations at Perplexity (San Francisco, CA)
Perplexity· San Francisco, CA· $200k–$230k·
Role details
Equity
Perplexity at a glance
AI-powered answer engine that returns real-time, cited answers, now expanding into an agentic browser and on-device agents.
Perplexity runs an AI answer engine that searches the live web and returns direct, cited answers instead of a page of links. It has extended that core into an AI browser (Comet), an on-device agent (Computer), a developer API, and vertical tools like patent search.
$1.7B raised · latest: Series E extension · $200M · 2025 (reported $20B valuation) · backed by Accel, IVP, NEA, SoftBank Vision Fund 2
Summary
The Sales Systems Engineer owns the technical layer for the enterprise sales motion, managing CPQ, account scoring, and data orchestration. This builder role involves writing SQL in Snowflake, configuring Salesforce flows, and integrating GTM tools to support a scaling SaaS business.
Job description
About Perplexity
Perplexity is the answer engine for the AI era. We are scaling a fast-growing enterprise business and building the operating system that runs it. Our GTM stack is modern, API-first, and Snowflake-native. We build before we buy, and we ship.
The Role
We are hiring a Sales Systems Engineer to own the technical layer underneath our enterprise sales motion. This person runs CPQ, account and lead scoring, data orchestration, and the integrations that connect Salesforce, Snowflake, and the rest of our GTM stack.
You will be the technical owner of how deals get priced, quoted, scored, routed, and tracked. You will work directly with sales, finance, marketing ops, and product to build a system that scales from where we are now to a billion-dollar-ARR business.
This is a builder role. You should be equally comfortable writing SQL in Snowflake, building Salesforce flows, configuring CPQ rules, debugging a Workato recipe, and shipping a Python script to fix a data problem before the seller notices.
What You Will Own
- CPQ: Quote-to-cash configuration, product catalog, pricing rules, approval workflows, discount governance, contract generation. Partner with Finance and Legal on guardrails.
- Scoring: Account scoring, lead scoring, PLG activation scoring, intent signal aggregation. Build and maintain scoring models in Snowflake, push scores to Salesforce via reverse ETL.
- Data orchestration: Polytomic, Hightouch, and Workato pipelines that move data across Snowflake, Salesforce, NetSuite, Apollo, Unify, and the rest of the stack. Own SLAs, monitoring, and breakage response.
- Salesforce engineering: Flows, validation rules, formula fields, custom objects, Apex when needed, Lightning page configuration, permission sets, sandbox management.
- Integrations: API-level integration work across our GTM tools. Build custom connectors when off-the-shelf does not cut it.
- Routing and ownership: Account routing logic, opportunity assignment rules, territory management, ROE enforcement.
- Reporting infrastructure: Snowflake models that power pipeline, forecast, comp, and exec reporting. Partner with Analytics on the visualization layer.
What We Are Looking For
- 5+ years in Sales Systems, RevOps Engineering, Salesforce engineering, or Enterprise Systems at a high-growth SaaS company
- Deep Salesforce expertise: flows, formula fields, validation rules, custom objects, sharing model, Apex if needed
- Hands-on CPQ experience (Salesforce CPQ, Stripe Billing, Maxio, or similar) including pricing, approvals, and quote generation
- Strong SQL. You can write production-grade Snowflake queries and build dbt-style transformation logic.
- Production experience with reverse ETL (Polytomic, Hightouch, Census) and iPaaS (Workato, Tray, Zapier at scale)
- Comfort with REST APIs, webhooks, and scripting in Python or JavaScript
- A bias for building. You have shipped custom solutions when the vendor option was wrong.
- Operator mindset. You read tickets, you ship fixes, you do not need a PM to translate seller requests.
Nice to Have
- Familiarity with PLG-to-enterprise motion and scoring users into accounts
- Experience with Apollo, Unify, Loops, Gatsby, Momentum, Floqer, or similar GTM tools
- NetSuite or Metronome billing exposure
- Comp plan tooling (Everstage, CaptivateIQ, QuotaPath)
- Background in entity resolution, dedup, or domain enrichment
How We Work
- Build over buy when it earns its keep
- Snowflake is the source of truth, Salesforce is the system of action
- Live data over polling
- Real people own accounts, never queues
- Direct, fast, low-process. We delete and resend over debate.
What Success Looks Like
- 90 days: You own CPQ, scoring, and orchestration. Nothing breaks silently. Sellers know who to call.
- 180 days: Quote-to-cash is clean. Scoring drives real routing decisions. Snowflake-Salesforce sync is boring.
- 12 months: You have replaced two vendors with custom builds, shipped the next generation of our scoring system, and made the seller experience visibly better.
Why work at Perplexity
- 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.