a16z Build
Applications open

FDE Fellowship

For frontline FDEs and division leaders pairing technical depth with product intuition to ship AI inside live enterprises.

You might call yourself an FDE, Applied AI Agent Builder, Director of AI Deployment, or something else entirely. Titles don’t matter - what does is your mindset and approach.

Applications close on Fri, June 26th at midnight PT - we’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis for a limited number of spots.

FDE Fellowship graphic

Length

8 weeks

Starts

July 2026

Commitment

Opt-in dinners and events

Primary hub

SF (more cities by demand)

Who you’ll be joining

You’ll break bread with a curated group of founding fellows and industry leaders. Here’s a quick glimpse.

Rohan Chandra
Rohan Chandra
Regional Director, AI Deployment
Cursor
Luv Kothari
Luv Kothari
GM, Applied AI
Snowflake
Gene Karshenboym
Gene Karshenboym
Director of Engineering, Operations & Strategy
Google
prev CEO at Phiar
Kevin Bai
Kevin Bai
Founding FDE
Rippling
prev FDE Lead at Palantir
Senta Knuth
Senta Knuth
Enterprise Product Deployment
ElevenLabs
Leo Mehr
Leo Mehr
Director of Engineering
Ramp
Barry McCardel
Barry McCardel
Founder & CEO
Hex
Perry Ha
Perry Ha
VP, Agent Product
Decagon
Niko Grupen
Niko Grupen
Head of Applied Research
Harvey
Isa Gomez
Isa Gomez
Forward Deployed Engineer
OpenAI