Introducing the a16z Growth Engineer Fellowship
A new 8-week cohort of growth engineers, AI-native GTM leaders, and tech-savvy agent builders shaping the future of company growth
Today we’re introducing the Growth Engineer Fellowship - an 8-week cohort for growth engineers, AI-native GTM leaders, and growth-minded agent builders shaping the future of company growth.
It was inspired by the New Media Fellowship - which is all about shaping tech narratives and helping the right stories catch fire. Because after you get people’s attention, growth engineering is how you capture and convert those eyeballs into meaningful business outcomes.
If you’re interested, apply here by 4/20. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and the fellowship will begin in May 2026.
How it works
8 weeks long
Starts in May 2026
Time commitment is flexible, all opt-in
What you’ll get
Connect with AI-native growth hackers, engineers, and leaders whose workflows are fundamentally transforming how companies grow
Dinner series in SF (and more cities, by demand)
Demos, feedback, and live working sessions
Who you’ll be joining
You’ll break bread with founding fellows and industry leaders like:
Bryan Kim - Consumer/AI Investment Partner at a16z, prev Growth at Snap
Luc Levesque - Prev Chief Growth Officer at Shopify
Marty Imber - Head of Product Growth for Starlink
Lauryn Motamedi - Product & Growth Lead at Notion
Gaurav Vohra - prev Head of Growth at Superhuman; Advisor to Clay, Wispr Flow, & Replit
Luke Harries - Growth at ElevenLabs
Raman Malik - VP of Product and Growth at Perplexity
Ajay Prakash - Head of Growth at Superpower
Kyle Norton - CRO at Owner.com
Emily Gavrilenko - Growth at Cursor
and many more.
The next frontier of growth
Growth and distribution is more competitive, fast-moving, and complex than ever before. Every traditional channel is saturated, the easy arbitrages are gone, and the playbook that worked two years ago is already obsolete.
The new playbook is: make your story impossible to ignore (via New Media), then speak to every prospect as if you wrote the message just for them.
AI is enabling extreme personalization at scale. Hyper-targeted landing pages, demos, voice agent scripts, ads, influencer marketing campaigns, and more - tailored to each unique customer. Modern growth leaders understand this. They can hold the business equation in their head, and when they need to, spin up 20 AI agents and custom workflows overnight to get the right outcomes.
What’s more is that all this work no longer requires an entire team. The roles of a growth marketer, PM, and engineer are all collapsing into one. And for many startups, this is becoming their most important hire - a first principles thinker who’s AI-native, incredibly curious, and willing to do whatever it takes to win leads and multiply revenue.
We’re launching this fellowship to give these growth leaders a space to trade tactics, pressure-test ideas, and discover the early edges before everyone else does.
As a fellow, you’ll get insider access to the a16z ecosystem - but the greatest resource will be the other fellows in your cohort. Through our off-the-record dinner and “tiny talk” series, you’ll get to see what other fellows are building, demo your work, get feedback, and ship faster.
We’re looking for fellows who:
Are hackers at heart and close to the work - people who like to get into the weeds with tools and build the system themselves
Operate AI-first and are pushing the forefront of how work gets done
Can find the biggest lever in the growth engine and build the system that pulls it (with agents, tools, whatever)
You might call yourself a GTM engineer, a SWE or PM with a growth obsession, or something else. Titles don’t matter - what does is your mindset and approach.
If you’re interested, apply here. We’re accepting applications on a rolling basis and launching the cohort in May 2026.
Questions? Contact Katie Kirsch. Thank you!
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