---
title: 'Strategic Business Operations Lead, API at Perplexity'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-business-operations-lead-api-perplexity-san-francisco-v9wgj13z5mkz'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Strategic Business Operations Lead, API at Perplexity

- **Company:** [Perplexity](https://feeny.ai/companies/perplexity)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $170k–$220k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-09-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/perplexity/cf99602c-3f06-4443-bc8a-e03d0a67ad4c

## Job description

Perplexity's API Platform brings our work in AI, search, and agent orchestration to developers. Our customers range from AI-native startups to some of the world's largest technology companies. Working with them, alongside our own developments in building Perplexity’s core application gives our team direct exposure to how search, models, and tools are used to build and scale AI-native products and applications.

## About this role

We are looking for a Strategic Business Operations Lead to manage customer relationships and lead projects that help grow the API business. The role is roughly half customer-facing and half strategic and operational work, with an initial focus on building and improving our post-sale programs.

You will own a portfolio of API customers, learning how AI-native companies and large enterprises evaluate, adopt, and scale AI infrastructure. Working closely with API leadership, you will help shape how the business operates and lead projects such as product migrations, customer enablement, and account coverage. You will put recommendations into practice, with results measured in customer adoption, retention, and growth.

## Responsibilities

- Manage a portfolio of API customer relationships, leading account conversations, understanding business priorities, and coordinating next steps across technical and commercial teams.
- Build account plans around adoption, value, and growth. Identify risks early and partner with Sales and account owners on renewals and expansion.
- Design and improve the post-sale operating model, including customer segmentation, account coverage, onboarding, health signals, and handoffs between teams.
- Lead strategic projects across the API business, with an initial emphasis on customer adoption and retention. Scope the problem, develop a recommendation, coordinate execution, and track outcomes.
- Run customer programs such as product and endpoint migrations, enablement, and rollout communications. Establish the audience, milestones, internal responsibilities, and follow-up needed for each.
- Coordinate customer communications for product updates, pricing changes, deprecations, and incidents, working with Engineering, Support, and commercial teams on accurate messaging.
- Analyze usage, consumption against commitments, renewal risk, and expansion signals to prioritize customer engagement and inform business decisions.
- Build practical reporting, workflows, and automation that help the team manage a growing customer base. Partner with Finance and Billing Operations to improve the customer experience around credits, commitments, and billing.
- Bring insights from customers into API planning and take on additional strategic initiatives as business priorities evolve.

## What we're looking for

- 5+ years of experience in business operations, strategy and operations, consulting, customer success, account management, or a related role.
- A track record of taking ambiguous business problems from analysis through implementation, including projects that require coordination across multiple teams.
- Strong analytical skills: comfortable working with spreadsheets, usage data, and business metrics to identify a problem, test a hypothesis, and recommend an action.
- Strong relationship skills and a genuine interest in spending a substantial part of your time with customers. You can lead a conversation, understand their priorities, and take responsibility for the follow-up.
- Curiosity about APIs and AI products, with the ability to learn technical concepts and work effectively with engineering teams.
- Clear writing, commercial judgment, and the ability to balance ongoing customer relationships with longer-term projects.

## Nice to have

- Direct customer-facing experience in a B2B technology company, including account management, customer success, partnerships, or solutions work.
- Experience with API businesses, developer platforms, or consumption-based revenue models.
- Working knowledge of SQL, CRM systems, or BI tools, and experience automating recurring analysis or workflows.

## 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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- [Technical Customer Success Manager, API](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-customer-success-manager-api-perplexity-san-francisco-8jsszbfvmpsm) — San Francisco, CA
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- [Enablement Specialist, Perplexity Computer](https://feeny.ai/job/enablement-specialist-perplexity-computer-perplexity-san-francisco-n096fr55k7gk) — San Francisco, CA
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