Strategic Finance Lead - AI

The role

The Strategic Finance Lead will lead the economics of AI products. You will partner with product, inference, and data teams to optimize model spend and drive pricing and margin decisions.

What you will do

• Finance lead for inference and model spend, including budgeting, monthly forecasting, variance analysis, and financial plan maintenance
• Build and maintain product-margin models across the product portfolio
• Develop expertise in model provider contracts, pricing structures, and cost drivers
• Serve as subject matter expert for product unit economics
• Own the consolidated model-cost forecast
• Analyze the margin impact of pricing, packaging, and model-deployment decisions
• Partner with product, inference, and data engineering to translate technical dynamics into financial frameworks

Required qualifications

• Exceptional analytical skills to synthesize data and develop complex financial operating models
• Extraordinary problem-solving and critical thinking abilities
• Attention to detail and patience for getting to the source of truth on complex data
• Comfort working cross-functionally and communicating complex financial information to non-finance audiences
• Sound commercial judgment across pricing, packaging, discounting, and growth and margin tradeoffs
• Proven track record of partnering with technical and product teams to drive financial optimization initiatives
• A bias toward action, strong work ethic, and experience driving operational outcomes under tight timelines
• Background in AI, ML, or consumption-based business models with complex cost structures

Nice to have

• 4+ years of experience in strategic finance, private equity, growth equity, consulting, or investment banking, preferably with software or AI product experience
• Experience in AI or LLM product financial management, including direct work with model providers or inference platforms
• Deep expertise in usage-based pricing, subscription economics, and gross-margin and COGS attribution by customer and model family
• Experience with model serving economics, including how latency, throughput, and token usage flow through to margin performance
• Proficiency with financial modeling tools

About the company

Perplexity is seeking a Strategic Finance Lead to help lead the economics of their AI products.