Comic books and companies have one important thing in common: an origin story. And the origin story of Sierra really begins in the early naughts at Google where we met each other as early graduates of the Associate Product Manager (APM) program.
In 2002, Marissa Mayer and Jonathan Rosenberg debated the best approach to finding the next generation of product leaders who would thrive in Google’s engineering-driven culture. They believed the ideal PM would deeply understand technology while also being able to influence teams through data and social finesse. However, when they hired experienced PMs—or those with MBAs—they often found these individuals struggled to understand Google’s way of doing things.
Marissa came up with an idea: hire new computer science grads, set them up as in-house entrepreneurs, and give them the opportunity to head up important product teams. And so the APM program was born. (Bret was in the first class and Clay was in the third class.)
Developing the next generation of builders and leaders
As we think about the current shift in computing driven by AI, we believe generalists with diverse training and experience will become more important than ever. Instead of specializing early in an engineering, product management, or business subfield, the next generation of builders and leaders will be able to do everything it takes to create, ship, and distribute great products.
Taking inspiration from the APM program, we’re announcing the APX program, an 18-month rotational program that gives new graduates the opportunity to build AI agents as both an Agent Engineer and an Agent Product Manager—all within the context of a young and fast-growing company.
We believe that AI agent development is the perfect training ground for future builders. As an APX, you will directly represent your agents with customers and prospects and in regular business reviews with our founders and senior leadership team. You’ll collaborate across the company at all stages of the program, working closely with other PMs, engineers, designers, AI researchers, and executive sponsors. And you will travel together as a team to meet Sierra customers, attend talks, research future AI opportunities, and learn from industry leaders.
Agent Engineering
After two intensive weeks of “Agent Bootcamp,” you’ll spend one 9-month rotation as an Agent Engineer, becoming an expert in building and delivering production agents for Sierra’s customers. At Sierra, we move quickly, and you’ll commit code and design new features daily. As your agents handle and resolve millions of end-user conversations, you’ll develop a strong foundation in AI engineering and product development.
Agent Engineers go beyond standard programming to apply frontier AI tools and techniques like fine-tuning, multimodal models, and agent orchestration frameworks like Sierra’s Agent SDK. In addition to building strong technical skills, you’ll develop customer empathy and domain expertise to craft agents that are robust, scalable, and tailored to complex customer experience scenarios.
Agent Product Management
In your other 9-month rotation, you'll work closely with our customers to design new agents from scratch and optimize existing agents as an Agent Product Manager. You’ll represent Sierra externally with partners and prospects across a broad set of industries, and build intuition for customer success and impactful opportunities within Sierra.
Agent PMs treat each agent as a fully tailored product, customized to the customer’s unique requirements and brand—not just a generic solution. They oversee development and scaling to ensure seamless integration and strong performance, and experience many cycles of "spec, build, ship, refine" in a compressed time frame.
Graduation
After completing the second rotation, we expect graduates of the APX program to be ready to take on more senior roles in a field they’ve practiced. You’ll put everything together—your AI engineering expertise, product sense, and customer learnings—to lead agent development for customers as an Agent Engineer or Agent PM. We'll strongly consider your preference as well as current business needs.
Applications now open
The APX program is now open to students in computer science or a related field who are graduating in 2025. If you want to shape and learn from the most important technological wave of our time, apply here.
