Strategic Finance Lead - AI

About this role

About the RoleWe 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.This position is based in San Francisco and requires in-person attendance 2-3 days per week.Key ResponsibilitiesFinance lead for inference and model spend, including budgeting, monthly forecasting, variance analysis, and financial plan maintenanceBuild and maintain product-margin models across the product portfolio, reconciling revenue, serving cost, and gross margin from production usage dataDevelop deep expertise in model provider contracts, pricing structures, and cost drivers, and surface optimization opportunities across the model portfolio and routing mixServe 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 economicsOwn the consolidated model-cost forecast, translating product roadmaps and model transitions into forward-looking spend and margin trajectoriesAnalyze the margin impact of pricing, packaging, and model-deployment decisions, distilled into a framework for product and pricing strategyPartner closely with product, inference, and data engineering to understand how usage and serving cost scale, and translate those technical dynamics into financial frameworksYou May Be a Good Fit If You HaveExceptional analytical skills with an ability to synthesize data into compelling insights and develop complex financial operating modelsExtraordinary problem-solving and critical thinking abilities to develop new frameworks for assessing product margin and unit economics in a rapidly evolving industryAttention to detail and patience for getting to the source of truth on complex and interconnected usage, revenue, and cost dataComfort working cross-functionally and are adept at communicating complex financial information to non-finance audiencesSound commercial judgment across pricing, packaging, discounting, and the tradeoffs between growth and marginA proven track record of partnering with technical and product teams to drive financial optimization initiativesA bias toward action, strong work ethic, and experience driving operational outcomes under tight timelinesBackground in AI, ML, or consumption-based business models with complex cost structuresPreferred Qualifications4+ years of experience in strategic finance, private equity, growth equity, consulting, or investment banking, preferably with software or AI product experienceExperience in AI or LLM product financial management, including direct work with model providers or inference platformsDeep expertise in usage-based pricing, subscription economics, and gross-margin and COGS attribution by customer and model familyExperience with model serving economics, including how latency, throughput, and token usage flow through to margin performanceProficiency with financial modeling tools