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Perplexity is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with enterprise customers and deliver high-impact AI automation solutions using Perplexity Computer, an AI system that navigates tools, interacts with applications, and completes multi-step workflows end-to-end.
In this role, you will work directly with Fortune 500 enterprises, top consulting firms, and frontier finance and legal organizations on time-boxed engagements (typically 1–3 months). You are responsible for scoping their highest-leverage use cases, designing and building working solutions, and shipping them at velocity while owning the full customer relationship.
Key responsibilities include:
- Embedding with strategic customers and running engagements as structured projects with clear scope, milestones, and exit criteria
- Hands-on design, prototyping, and deployment of AI workflows using Perplexity Computer and adjacent tooling
- Owning the customer relationship end-to-end: managing expectations with executives, running working sessions with practitioner teams, and de-risking deployments
- Turning each engagement into reusable assets (skill templates, connectors, reference implementations) that benefit future customers and internal teams
- Partnering with Sales and Customer Success on scoping, pre-sales validation, and expansion opportunities
You should be a hybrid professional—roughly one-third engineer, one-third solutions architect, one-third program manager—with excellence in at least two areas and credibility across all three. This is a hands-on-keyboard, outcome-owning role at the intersection of engineering, solutions architecture, and technical program management. It is not a traditional Solutions Engineer, Customer Success, or generalist implementation role.
Required qualifications:
- 5+ years in customer-embedded technical roles (forward-deployed engineering, senior solutions engineering, solutions architecture, or technical consulting)
- Proven track record managing customer engagements as projects with clear scoping, milestones, status reporting, executive communication, and risk management
- AI-native: daily use of frontier LLMs, agents, and coding assistants with strong intuition for model capabilities and limitations
- Executive-credible communication skills; ability to architect conversations with CIOs while executing on the ground
- High agency in ambiguity; ability to figure out what matters and ship without perfect specs or requirements
Nice-to-haves include prior FDE or applied-AI roles at frontier AI companies, Sales Engineering leadership on $1M+ enterprise deals, Solutions Architect experience in strong services teams, deployment experience with agents/RAG/multi-step LLM workflows in regulated environments, and startup/small-team background with end-to-end customer ownership.
About Perplexity AI
AI / Data / Infrastructure — AI answer engine and search product for consumers and enterprises.
