AI Operations Associate

Fuel Cycle; Los Angeles (CA); Remote; USD 85,000 - 105,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Health Coverage

401(k) with Company Match

Equity Purchase Option

Flexible Work Schedule

Generous Time Off

Parental Leave

Job summary

Fuel Cycle in Los Angeles (HQ) is seeking an AI Operations Associate to drive AI-native transformations across IT, services, sales, and marketing. You will own the AI for IT stack, deploy agentic workflows, and shape the roadmap with the Chief AI Officer while transitioning from manual hand-offs to AI-driven pipelines.

From day one you’ll collaborate with product, engineering, and finance, measuring business impact, building BI dashboards, and expanding AI coverage across functions.

Qualifications

• Track record of building AI solutions in a business context.
• Hands-on agentic development with Claude Code, MCP, prompt engineering.
• Proficient in Python for data analysis and automation.
• Experience with CRM/ERP/BI systems is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own the AI-Native Service Desk & App Automation: Architect and deploy autonomous AI agents for IT tickets and software provisioning.
• Ship Autonomous Security & Network Pipelines: Design end-to-end AI pipelines for cybersecurity operations and infrastructure tasks.
• Optimize Enterprise IT Metrics via Agent Deployment: Deploy and tune agents to improve IT performance metrics and reduce downtime.
• Build the IT Intelligence Layer (BI Dashboards): Design and maintain BI dashboards for real-time infrastructure health and agent performance.
• Partner with Product Management to Shape the Field: Collaborate with product/engineering to feed real-world telemetry into the AI platform.

Skills

AI agent development

Python

SQL

MCP

Prompt engineering

BI dashboards

Tools

Claude Code

MCP

Prompt engineering

Evaluation loops

Job description

linkAbout Fuel Cycle: Fuel Cycle empowers leading organizations with agile research solutions that deliver decision-ready insights — fast, flexible, and fully integrated. As a market research disruptor, our AI-powered Insights Platform is built for speed, precision, and scale. With cutting-edge tools and seamless audience connectivity, we help brands ditch the guesswork and make smarter, customer-led decisions at lightning speed.

Why work at Fuel Cycle?

Join a high-growth team where curiosity is valued, ownership is encouraged, and your work drives real-world impact. Whether you’re based at our Los Angeles HQ, New York City hub, working remotely across the U.S., or part of our global team in India, you’ll help shape the future of decision intelligence for some of the world’s most iconic brands.

The Role

The AI Operations Associate is Fuel Cycle’s AI transformation role, with one mission: make every function in the company AI-native. We start with IT, Services, Sales, and Marketing.

You’ll begin by owning our AI for IT stack. That means deploying agentic workflows across the Service Desk, application management, and cybersecurity operations. You’ll shape the roadmap alongside our Chief AI Officer, then build and ship it.

This is not an IT Operations seat with AI bolted on. You’ll own the shift from manual, hand-offs-between-people workflows to AI-driven pipelines, and you’ll measure and report the business impact of each one.

• If an agent can do the work, you build it. You architect, build, and deploy the replacement.
• If it can’t yet, you make it possible. You fix the underlying data and re-engineer the process until it can.

AI for IT is your starting point, and from day one you’ll work in lockstep with Services, Marketing, and Finance. As our internal playbook matures, your scope grows to HR, Legal, Customer Success, and the rest of the enterprise.

Key Responsibilities (Initial focus)

• Own the AI-Native Service Desk & App Automation: Architect and deploy autonomous AI agents capable of resolving IT help desk tickets independently. You will move beyond basic ticket triage to build self-executing agentic workflows for software provisioning, account access management, hardware procurement, and system troubleshooting.
• Ship Autonomous Security & Network Pipelines: Design and deploy end-to-end AI pipelines that automate core cybersecurity operations and infrastructure tasks. This includes agentifying threat detection, anomaly isolation, routine patch management, firewall adjustments, and new user network configurations.
• Optimize Enterprise IT Metrics via Agent Deployment: Deploy, monitor, and continuously tune agents against strict internal SLAs. You will own the optimization loops to ensure that agentic execution directly improves core IT performance metrics—slashing time-to-resolution, reducing system downtime, and eliminating manual routing bottlenecks.
• Build the IT Intelligence Layer (BI Dashboards): Design and maintain robust Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards that grant real-time visibility into infrastructure health, agent performance, software utilization, and security vectors. You will transform raw operational logs into a single, trusted source of truth for leadership.
• Partner with Product Management to Shape the Field: Work in lockstep with the Product and Engineering teams to dogfood internal breakthroughs. You will act as "Customer Zero," feeding your real-world IT operational telemetry and agent design patterns back into Fuel Cycle's core AI platform development lifecycle.

Broader Internal Operations (Expanding Scope)

• Identify and prioritize AI automation opportunities across all internal functions — HR, Legal, Customer Success, IT, and others — as GTM coverage matures.
• Establish and own the internal AI operations playbook: how Fuel Cycle evaluates, deploys, and measures AI-native replacements for manual workflows company-wide.
• Champion AI fluency across internal teams — helping department leaders understand what is automatable, what isn't yet, and what the roadmap looks like.
• Partner with Product & Engineering on the underlying platform and MCP infrastructure that powers internal agent surfaces.

Systems, Data & Measurement

• Own the "single source of truth" standard across all functions you support — ensuring data is clean, definitions are agreed, and escalations over numbers are rare.
• Instrument every AI workflow you deploy with evaluation loops so quality, accuracy, and reliability are continuously measured.
• Maintain a clear, quantified view of manual hours displaced, workflow coverage, and time-to-answer improvement — and report it to leadership.

Your Success Metrics

• AI-Native Coverage — Percentage of routine workflows across supported functions executed or materially assisted by AI agents.
• Manual Hours Displaced — Dollar-equivalent time returned to IT, and other operational leaders each quarter.
• Speed to Answer — Time from a leader's question to a trustworthy answer, whether via dashboard, agent response, or ad hoc analysis.
• Data Trust — Reduction in escalations and disputes over pipeline, attribution, revenue, and operational numbers.
• Function Coverage Expansion — Number of internal functions with at least one AI-native workflow deployed and measured.

Who You'll Work With

• Chief Product and AI Officer
• Head of Products
• Head of Engineering
• DevOps
• CMO and Marketing leadership
• CFO and Finance leadership
• HR, Legal, and other functional leaders (as scope expands)
• The existing AI Operations Associate (peer, focused on customer-facing teams)

Core Skills, Competencies & Attributes

• Strong systems thinker — able to hold Salesforce architecture, a marketing automation platform, a finance stack, and other internal tooling in view simultaneously and see the seams between them.
• Fluent in AI-native workflow concepts: agents, MCP, prompt engineering, evaluation loops, and human-in-the-loop design.
• Comfortable owning the "single source of truth" burden across multiple functions with competing priorities.
• Communicates clearly with both technical (engineering) and commercial (sales, marketing, finance, operations) audiences.
• Bias to build and ship — will prototype the replacement rather than document the current state.

Required Experience & Technical Skills

• Track record of building and shipping solutions with AI in a business context.
• Hands-on experience with agentic development: Claude Code, MCP, prompt engineering, evaluation loops.
• Python for data analysis and automation; SQL for querying and reporting.
• Familiarity with enterprise operational systems (CRM, marketing automation, ERP, BI) — enough to build against them, with willingness to become fluent across the stack.
• Comfort with ambiguity and strong prioritization instincts across a broad operational scope.

Benefits & Perks

Fuel Cycle is committed to supporting the well-being, flexibility, and growth of our team. We offer a competitive and inclusive benefits package that includes:

• Comprehensive Health Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans
• 401(k) with Company Match: Plan for your future with our retirement savings program
• Equity Purchase Option: Participate in Fuel Cycle’s long-term success
• Flexible Work Schedule: Empowering you to balance life and work
• Generous Time Off:
  • 15 vacation days and 7 sick days per year
  • 12 company holidays
  • 4 floating holidays/recharge days to rest or celebrate what matters to you
• Paid Parental Leave: Time to bond with your growing family
• Monthly Internet & Phone Stipend: Support for remote work setup
• Wellness & Lifestyle Perks: Access to tools like Rightway (healthcare navigation), Headspace (mental wellness), Peloton (fitness), and more
• Team Connection Perks:
  • Weekly community lunches, refreshments, and snacks at our LA & NY headquarters

Compensation Overview

The expected starting salary range for this position is $85,000 - $105,000. This range represents the typical starting compensation offered to candidates hired into this role. Final base salary will be determined based on a variety of factors, including location, work experience, skills, knowledge, education, and certifications.

Compensation Range: $85K - $105K

Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Equal Opportunity

At Fuel Cycle, we embrace the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion and are committed to fostering an inclusive company culture. We believe that everyone, regardless of their background or identity, should have equal access to opportunities for growth and advancement. Our selection processes and career pathways are designed to be fair, transparent, and free from bias. We value the unique perspectives and contributions of each team member, knowing that this diverse range of experiences strengthens our team. Fuel Cycle stands firmly against discrimination based on disability, sex, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age, veteran status, or any other protected status under the law. Fuel Cycle is an equal opportunity employer and fully comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants and employees with disabilities, as needed, to enable them to perform the essential functions of their job and participate in the application and interview process. If you require accommodations during any part of the application process, please contact us at [e-mail] to discuss your needs.