Procurement Lead - AI-Powered Sourcing & Strategy

Wwshemi; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a Procurement Lead in San Francisco to build our procurement function from the ground up. You will design workflows, policies, and the vendor framework, while managing relationships and negotiating favorable terms across software, cloud services, data, and professional services.

You will partner with Legal, Security, and Accounting to ensure governance and cost efficiencies, using AI-driven automation to streamline processes.

Qualifications

• 5-7+ years of procurement or strategic sourcing at a high-growth tech company.
• Experience negotiating multi-million dollar software, cloud, or data agreements.
• Experience building procurement processes, policies, and systems from scratch.
• Ability to manage multiple deals with incomplete information.
• Comfort using AI tools to accelerate work and improve workflows.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and commercial acumen.

Responsibilities

• Lead high-impact vendor deals across software, cloud services, data, and professional services, from alternatives through pricing and signature.
• Structure committed-spend, usage-based, and multi-year agreements that scale with usage and preserve flexibility.
• Own relationships with our most important vendors, including performance tracking and renewals.
• Design an efficient procurement workflow, policies, and approval thresholds, and implement tools and AI automation to run them.
• Use AI workflows and agents to automate procurement from intake and contract review to spend analysis and reporting.
• Build visibility into vendor spend and contracts, driving savings through consolidation and renegotiation.
• Partner with Legal, Security, and Accounting on contract terms, vendor risk reviews, and audit-ready controls.

Skills

Procurement strategy

Vendor negotiations

Strategic sourcing

Multi-million deals

AI workflows

Tools

AI tools

Job description

Perplexity is seeking a Procurement Lead in San Francisco to build our procurement function from the ground up. You will design workflows, policies, and the vendor framework, while managing relationships and negotiating favorable terms across software, cloud services, data, and professional services.

You will partner with Legal, Security, and Accounting to ensure governance and cost efficiencies, using AI-driven automation to streamline processes.