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Today, we’re introducing the a16z Ops Engineering Fellowship, a six-week cohort for the innovators redefining how organizations operate with AI.
AI is no longer just an individual productivity tool. The fastest growing companies in tech are now deploying it at the systems level: rolling out agents to handle cross-team tasks, redesigning workflows to eliminate manual handoffs, and building durable infrastructure that enables a company to up-level its capabilities.
The people leading this shift are cross-functional leaders who sit at the intersection of operations and engineering. They might be AI-native operations leaders, scrappy engineers, or technical founders who are transforming the infrastructure of their organization and operational stack. They identify how to leverage AI internally, then build and implement the systems that empower each team member.
We’re launching this fellowship to bring these builders together to share what’s working, level up, and define the frontier of internal AI playbooks.
How it works
Six weeks
Starts in October 2026
Flexible time commitment
What you’ll get
Tight network of AI-pilled leaders at the fastest growing companies in the world
In-person dinner series in San Francisco (additional cities based on demand)
Candid, tangible learnings from those building and implementing internal AI
Who you’ll be joining
You’ll break bread with founding fellows and industry leaders such as:
Seb Goddijn - Builder of Glass @ Ramp
Claire Vo - Founder @ ChatPRD and CXO.dev
Matt Portnov - Internal AI Lead @ Decagon
Ann Miura-Ko - General Partner @ Floodgate
Brandon Gell - COO @ Every
TK Kong - Co-founder @ Concept and Prev. Lead @ Ramp Labs
Owen Williams - Design Manager, Developer AI @ Stripe
…and many more.
The rising need for AI Operations
Every company is asking the same question: How do we leverage AI to transform how our team operates?
Granting teams access to AI tools is only the beginning. The fastest-growing companies in tech are turning this patchwork of siloed team-wide productivity gains into one shared system. The leaders of Internal AI understand existing operational systems, see how AI drives productivity team by team, and translate those gains into infrastructure that scales across the company.
Operations is now an engineering problem, and this group is solving it.
We’re looking for fellows who
Built or deployed AI agents and systems that redesign workflows across functions (operations, product, go-to-market, etc.)
Turned AI from an individual productivity tool into durable organizational infrastructure
Think in systems rather than isolated features or one-off automations
Can navigate both the technical and organizational realities of deployment
Care deeply about measurable outcomes, internal adoption, and the craft of building better companies
You might call yourself an Internal AI Lead, Chief of Staff, Internal Tools Engineer, Platform Lead, or something else entirely. Titles matter less than what you’ve built, the work speaks for itself.
Questions? Contact Brooke Martin - bmartin@a16z.com. Thank you!
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Operations is now an engineering problem" is the shift I keep seeing too. The piece I'd most want to hear the cohort on is internal adoption. My guess is getting a team to trust an agent's output is where a lot of these projects stall.
Would love to follow what comes out of it.