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Perplexity is seeking a Staff-level data professional to lead the design and implementation of AI-native data systems that fundamentally transform how the company's data team operates. This is a new function within the data organization, offering significant autonomy to define roadmap and execution.
You will build AI agents and internal systems that automate end-to-end data science workflows: hypothesis formation, query writing and execution, result interpretation, and recommendation generation with appropriate human review loops. Key responsibilities include:
- Designing and building AI agents for data science that go beyond SQL copilots to safely explore data, form hypotheses, run queries, interpret results, and generate actionable recommendations with clear evaluation and guardrails.
- Creating retrieval infrastructure and evaluation loops that enable AI systems to query the warehouse reliably using semantic context and metadata.
- Systematizing existing AI-assisted workflows into scalable, reusable tools and patterns adopted across the data team.
- Automating the data lifecycle through self-healing pipelines, automated dbt model generation and validation, data quality agents, and diagnosis workflows that reduce manual work.
- Building AI-powered experiment analysis systems that interpret A/B test results, flag statistical issues, identify drivers, and draft recommendations.
- Developing internal data products that replace ad hoc requests with self-serve AI interfaces for stakeholders.
- Owning the full lifecycle from problem identification through prototyping with LLMs, accuracy evaluation, UX design, production deployment, and quality monitoring.
Perplexity is an AI-first company with frontier model access and a data team already leveraging AI across workflows. You'll set the industry standard for how modern data teams operate, with direct impact and rapid iteration cycles (idea to shipped system in days, not quarters).
REQUIREMENTS:
- 6+ years in data science, analytics engineering, data engineering, or related role with hands-on experience in real data work.
- Deep SQL expertise and strong analytics judgment; ability to reason through metrics, experiments, data models, and warehouse complexity independently.
- Strong product sense: understanding stakeholder needs, workflow adoptability, and converting prototypes into products people use.
- Hands-on experience building with frontier LLMs, agents, RAG systems, evals, or AI-powered workflows; clear perspective on where AI succeeds and fails.
- Proficiency with dbt, warehouse schemas, data quality issues, and practical tradeoffs in durable data systems.
- Builder mentality: systematizing manual processes, shipping fast, measuring quality, and iterating.
- Autonomy and ability to help define roadmap in a new function.
BONUS QUALIFICATIONS:
- Production AI agent or agent evaluation system experience.
- Snowflake, semantic layers, or metadata systems experience.
- Internal tools, Slack bots, CLIs, or developer productivity products shipped to real users.
- Strong experimentation background with metric design and statistical interpretation expertise.
- BI tools experience with judgment on automation versus human review.
- Early-stage startup experience.
About Perplexity AI
AI / Data / Infrastructure — AI answer engine and search product for consumers and enterprises.
