Strategic Finance Lead - Infrastructure

About the role Perplexity is seeking a Strategic Finance - Infrastructure Lead to provide financial leadership over our cloud service provider (CSP) spend, compute and model capacity planning, and broader infrastructure economics. This person will be a core partner to our engineering, infrastructure, and product teams, bringing financial rigor and judgment to the most consequential cost decisions the company makes. You’ll build the models that underpin our capacity investments, own the day-to-day CSP and model provider relationships, and help shape how we plan for infrastructure as the business scales. The role partners closely with Accounting and Engineering leadership to keep our compute and CSP strategy tightly aligned with the company’s financial trajectory. Responsibilities: Capacity Planning & Infrastructure FP&A - Build and maintain multi-year capacity forecasts and scenario models across CPU, GPU, and accelerator footprints - Partner with Strategic Finance leadership on long-horizon capacity decisions, including reserved/committed structures and build-out sequencing - Lead ROI and trade-off analysis for new platforms, hardware generations, and efficiency initiatives - Translate engineering and product roadmaps into capacity requirements and the cost envelope to support them Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Financial Management - Own day-to-day management for all core infrastructure spend, including the monthly bill, variance analysis, and forecasting - Drive efficiency and optimization initiatives with engineering and infrastructure teams - Build cost-driver models that explain spend movements and surface the levers behind them - Support CSP rate and commit negotiations with rate analysis, benchmarking, and contract modeling - Maintain deep working knowledge of CSP contract terms, pricing structures, discount programs, and optimization opportunities - Partner with Accounting on contract operationalization, accrual accuracy, and compliance Inference Cost Allocation & Unit Economics Support - Own management and forecasting of inference costs end-to-end, including product unit economics - Partner with Strategic Finance and executive leadership on scenario analysis to understand core unit economics and product-mix view and it’s impact on strategy and financial statements - Support training-run budgeting, tracking, and ROI analysis You may be a good fit if you have: - 4+ years of experience in strategic finance or FP&A at a high-growth technology company, plus 2+ years in investment banking at a top-tier firm - Strong financial modeling skills and the ability to translate complex operating data into clear, decision-ready analysis - A track record of partnering effectively with engineering or technical teams to drive financial outcomes - Comfort communicating complex financial concepts to non-finance audiences across the company - Bias for action, first-principles thinking, and an ability to make progress in ambiguous environments - Excitement about working in a fast-paced, hyper-growth setting and adapting quickly as priorities shift - Strong process discipline, business judgment, and cross-functional communication skills - Genuine interest in AI infrastructure and the cost dynamics of large-scale model serving and training Strong candidates may also have: - Direct experience managing or modeling cloud infrastructure spend (AWS, GCP, Azure) - Background in AI, ML, or high-performance computing infrastructure economics - Familiarity with GPU pricing, reserved/committed structures, and CSP discount mechanics - Experience supporting capital-intensive capacity decisions or multi-year vendor commitments - Advanced Excel and financial modeling skills