> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt. # Applied AI Architect, Perplexity Computer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/0286143cb6cbd380 Perplexity posts a FDE role to integrate and configure the product in San Francisco, CA, at $200,000–$250,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Perplexity is hiring an Applied AI Architect to drive customer adoption of Perplexity Computer, a cloud agent product. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Perplexity](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/perplexity) Posted Aug 26, 2026 by Perplexity · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026 **$200,000–$250,000** + equity San Francisco, CA Full-time Perplexity is hiring an Applied AI Architect to drive customer adoption of Perplexity Computer, a cloud agent product. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F0286143cb6cbd380&placement=top) - [View posting at Perplexity](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/4fba58de-a168-4948-9d82-a7d4b38f45f2/application) Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so. ## At a glance ### Posted base pay $200K–$250K Above the median Midpoint $225K · median $190K This job $200K to $250K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K. ### The work Integrates and configures it Balance **Mixed** Project stages 1. Pre-sales 2. Proof of concept 3. Implementation 4. Operations - **Coding**: Configuration only - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Technical lead ### What they ask for Experience - **5+ years** customer-facing technical role Background - **Solutions and customer engineering** ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting asks for 5+ years. How many do you have? The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now? The job is in San Francisco, CA. Could you work there? Which of these have you used in production? Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent. [What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths) ## Conditions - **Location**: San Francisco, CA - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Pay**: ## More like this [Glean](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/glean) ### [Partner Solutions Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/42c89791e06624ee) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 2mo ago $200,000–$250,000 [Bunkerhill Health](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/bunkerhill-health) ### [Forward Deployed Product Lead](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b3123ef7adc7a284) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY On-site 6w ago $185,000–$245,000 [NVIDIA](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/nvidia) ### [Senior Solutions Architect, NVIDIA Cloud Partners](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7701d9b6b18c7976) Santa Clara, CA Remote 2mo ago $184,000–$287,500 - [Other jobs at Perplexity (1)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/perplexity) ## The job description from Perplexity Posted by Perplexity on Aug 26, 2026 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. [View posting at Perplexity](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Perplexity/4fba58de-a168-4948-9d82-a7d4b38f45f2/application) ## About Perplexity AI answer engine and agent platform that grounds responses in live web sources and turns research into actions for consumers, developers, and enterprises. Series E · 1000–2000 people ## Similar jobs [CoreWeave](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/coreweave) ### [Senior Specialist Field Engineer - SaaS](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/c383682d25fbd0ee) Sunnyvale, CA · San Francisco, CA 2mo ago $182,000–$242,000 [Figma](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/figma) ### [Field Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/920ea649ea394e40) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY Remote 2mo ago $140,000–$296,000 [Pure Storage](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/pure-storage) ### [Forward Deployed Engineering, Portworx](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/50e89e7f4d1ee762) Santa Clara, CA · Chicago, IL · +1 more On-site 2mo ago $208,000–$305,000 [Neural Concept](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/neural-concept) ### [Platform Deployment Engineer - West Coast](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3a818f9d541fea14) San Mateo, CA Hybrid 10d ago $200,000–$250,000 [Google](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/google) ### [AI Outcome Customer Engineer III, Forward Deployed Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/e9ad80319ba4941d) Chicago, IL · Atlanta, GA · +6 more New · 5d ago $183,000–$265,000 - [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior) - [Similar jobs in SF Bay Area](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=sf-bay-area) - [Similar jobs that integrate and configure the product](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=technical-delivery) Hiring at Perplexity and want this page changed or removed? 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