Applied AI Architect, Perplexity Computer

Location: San Francisco Perplexity is seeking an Applied AI Architect to help our customers turn Perplexity Computer into working solutions that drive measurable impact. This role is ideal for technical, consultative professionals who have led complex software implementations and can move comfortably between customer discovery, solution design, hands-on delivery, and executive communication. About the role Perplexity Computer is a new class of AI system that navigates tools, interacts with applications, and completes multi-step workflows end to end. Our customers are using Computer to transform work that traditional software has not been able to address. Applied AI Architects work directly with customers across presales, onboarding, adoption, and strategic engagements. You will uncover the real business problem, determine what Computer can credibly support, design and configure the workflow, and lead the engagement to a clear outcome. This is a hands-on, customer-facing role at the intersection of solutions architecture, technical consulting, and program delivery. You will work closely with Sales and Customer Success while serving as a quality filter for requests that require Product or Engineering. What you'll do - Lead technical discovery. Work with customer business leaders, technical teams, account executives, and customer success managers to understand the users, current workflow, desired outcome, constraints, and decision-makers. - Design credible solutions. Map how people, data, tools, approvals, permissions, and decisions interact, then determine how Computer can support the workflow. - Support complex opportunities. Partner with account executives on technical deal strategy, demos, proofs of value, architecture and security coordination, and engagement scoping. - Drive value-backed consumption. Identify high-value, repeatable workflows; define the expected business outcomes and usage patterns; and partner with Sales and Customer Success to move customers from technical validation to sustained production use and expansion. - Build hands-on. Configure, prototype, test, and iterate on Computer skills and workflows, including connectors, permissions, and adjacent tooling. - Accelerate onboarding and adoption. Provide second-level technical consultation to customer success managers and deliver bounded technical work when customer needs exceed standard Customer Success coverage. - Run strategic engagements. Establish scope, customer commitments, milestones, success criteria, working cadence, and exit criteria, then lead the work through closure. - Improve technical escalation. Validate product and engineering needs and produce decision-ready requests with clear evidence, constraints, impact, and acceptance criteria. - Turn every engagement into leverage. Convert repeated customer needs into reusable workflows, implementation patterns, demos, guidance, and product feedback. What we're looking for The strongest Applied AI Architects combine technical depth, consultative problem solving, and disciplined engagement delivery. You should be comfortable working hands-on with the product, advising customer executives, and managing the details required to deliver a successful outcome. Must-haves - 5+ years in a customer-facing technical role such as solutions architecture, senior sales engineering, AI implementation, forward deployed work, technical consulting, or technical program leadership. - Proven consultative discovery skills. You can turn an ambiguous request into a clear business problem, technical approach, and delivery plan. - Hands-on technical fluency. You are comfortable with APIs, integrations, authentication, identity, permissions, connectors, data flows, and technical troubleshooting. - Experience delivering complex implementations. You have managed scope, stakeholders, milestones, risk, expectations, and closure. - Strong solution judgment. You can distinguish education, configuration, implementation, support, product, and engineering problems and recommend the right path. - Commercial and consumption awareness. You can connect solution design and technical decisions to time to value, usage, credit consumption, customer economics, and expansion potential. - Executive-credible communication. You can explain technical trade-offs to senior decision-makers while working effectively with practitioners and engineers. - High agency in ambiguity. You can establish direction without waiting for perfect requirements, challenge weak assumptions, and make thoughtful decisions quickly. - AI-native working style. You use frontier models and AI tools regularly and have developed strong intuition for what current systems can and cannot do reliably. Nice-to-haves - Experience deploying agents or multi-step LLM workflows in complex enterprise environments. - Experience with Computer, MCP, enterprise identity, security, permissions, or workflow orchestration. - Experience in regulated or workflow-intensive industries such as legal, financial services, healthcare, or technology. - Prior forward deployed engineering, Applied AI, deployment strategist, solutions architecture, or technical consulting experience at an AI or enterprise software company. - A track record of turning customer implementations into reusable technical assets or product improvements.