AI Operations Lead

What We’re Building Honeycomb is a service for the near and present future, defining observability and raising expectations of what developer tools can do! We’re working with well known companies like HelloFresh, Slack, LaunchDarkly, and Vanguard and more across a range of industries. This is an exciting time in our trajectory, we’ve closed Series D funding, scaled past the 200-person mark, and were named to Forbes’ America’s Best Startups of 2022 and 2023! If you want to see what we’ve been up to, please check out these blog posts and Honeycomb.io press releases. Who We Are We come for the impact, and stay for the culture! We’re a talented, opinionated, passionate, fiercely inclusive, and responsible group of bees. We have conviction and we strive to live our values every day. We want our people to do what they truly love amongst a team of highly talented (but humble) peers. How We Work We are a fully distributed company, which means we believe it is not where you sit, but how you deliver that matters most. We invest in our people and care about how you orient to our culture and processes. At the same time we imbue a lot of trust, autonomy, and accountability from Day 1. #LI-Remote About the problem space AI is changing how work gets done across engineering, go-to-market, and business operations. The constraint is no longer “can we build it,” but “can we deploy it safely, repeatably, and in ways that measurably improve outcomes.” The charter of this role is to make Honeycomb an AI-superpowered company through building/buying, deploying, and evangelizing AI technology. This role exists to make AI at Honeycomb: Reliable and ubiquitous (platform, architecture, governance) High-leverage (automating real workflows; helping employees 2x their impact) Widely adopted (education, enablement, and standards) What you’ll do in the role As the AI Operations Lead, you’ll be a senior individual contributor who operates across the company to scale how we build and use AI internally. You’ll partner with our Engineering Enablement and Data Engineering teams on the technical and operational strategy for our internal AI platform, work closely with teams around the company to automate key business flows, and raise the company’s AI fluency through hands-on enablement and clear guidance. This is a role for someone who can move between architecture reviews, workflow design, vendor evaluation, security/privacy constraints, documentation crafting, and practical enablement, while keeping momentum and trust across many stakeholders. Responsibilities Own our internal, company-wide AI strategy, building a roadmap that balances quick wins with foundational platform investments. Supervise the architecture of our internal AI platform, guiding our Engineering Enablement and Data Engineering teams to find the right approach for both Engineering and company-wide AI platform capabilities. Support the creation reference architecture for internal AI capabilities: model access, orchestration/agents, prompt and tool management, evaluation, logging/telemetry, and cost controls. Partner with engineering and data to ensure AI platform components are built on shared infrastructure rather than point solutions. Identify AI workload dependencies early and bring those requirements into partner roadmaps collaboratively. Partner with security/IT/engineering/data on access control, data handling, vendor risk, and policy implementation, making sure that employees have a clear, safe path to experiment and move quickly with AI technologies. Partner with data, analytics, and security to establish shared data classification standards for AI use cases — what data can be used for retrieval or context, and what audit trails are needed when sensitive data flows through LLM pipelines Work with engineers and departmental SMEs to automate key business flows with AI across the company: Identify the highest-leverage internal workflows to automate (e.g., support triage, sales/CS enablement, incident follow-ups, internal knowledge retrieval, finance ops, talent ops). Lead cross-functional discovery to define success metrics (cycle time, quality, cost, risk) and then deliver end-to-end solutions. Build lightweight product thinking around internal tools: user research, iteration loops, documentation, and adoption plans. Establish measurement: evaluation harnesses, human-in-the-loop review where appropriate, and ongoing performance monitoring. Evangelize and educate our employee base on AI tooling and core concepts Create templates, playbooks, and “golden paths” (prompt patterns, agent patterns, safety checklists, skills, evaluation patterns). Run office hours, internal demos, and community-of-practice sessions that make adoption feel accessible and safe. Develop and deliver enablement resources/training for different audiences (engineering, GTM, operations, leadership), from fundamentals to advanced workflows. Build great relationships with leaders around the company, helping to make AI at Honeycomb feel truly company-wide, not just siloed into department-specific tools. Help teams build good judgment about AI: when to use it, when not to, and how to validate outcomes. What you’ll bring to the role Proven ability to stay current on the state of AI technology, evolving your perspective and approaches as the landscape changes. Significant experience as a senior IC building and operating production-grade platforms or internal systems with high trust requirements. Experience architecting modern AI stacks (LLMs, RAG, tool use/agents, evaluation, guardrails), combined with the judgment and pragmatism to keep things shippable. Track record of leading cross-functional initiatives with and without formal authority, bringing clarity, momentum, and crisp decision-making. Comfort navigating security, privacy, and compliance tradeoffs in real organizations (data classification, retention, access controls, vendor risk). Ability to teach and influence: you can explain complex topics simply, write clear docs, and meet people where they are. Nice to have Experience building internal developer platforms, workflow automation platforms, or enterprise automation (e.g., case management, ticketing, CRM, knowledge systems). Familiarity with observability practices for AI systems (monitoring, quality signals, evaluation pipelines, cost/latency analysis). Experience with change management: enabling adoption across a distributed company with multiple functions and priorities. Experience with and interest in external evangelism: writing, speaking, podcasts, social media, external peer groups, etc. Experience navigating data governance and security: data classification, RBAC strategy, acceptable use policies for LLM inputs and outputs, audit logging and working closely with data and engineering to define and enforce standards collaboratively. Base Salary based on level of experience $254,000—$299,000 USD What you'll get when you join the Hive: A stake in our success - generous equity with employee-friendly stock program It’s not about how strong of a negotiator you are - our pay is based on transparent levels relative to experience Time to recharge - Unlimited PTO and paid sabbatical A distributed-first mindset and culture (really!) Home office, co-working, and internet stipend Full benefits coverage for employees, with additional coverage available for dependents Up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave, regardless of path to parenthood Annual development allowance And much more... Please note we cannot currently sponsor or support visa transfers at this time. Additionally, in compliance with applicable law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work. Phishing and Recruitment Scam Warning: We take your security seriously. Please be aware that recruitment scams are increasingly common and scammers may create email addresses or websites to impersonate Honeycomb employees. To help protect you: All communications will come from an @honeycomb.io email address We occasionally work with external recruiting agencies. These partners will use legitimate business email addresses—never personal accounts like Gmail or Yahoo. Our recruiting process will never ask you to provide financial or sensitive personal information, including but not limited to: Social security or tax identification numbers Credit card numbers Bank account information Diversity & Accommodations: We're committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace—where people of all backgrounds, identities, experiences, and abilities are welcomed, valued, and supported. We recognize that there is no single path to success and embrace nontraditional career journeys and diverse perspectives as key to building stronger, more innovative teams. We strive to ensure an inclusive experience throughout every stage of our hiring process and are happy to provide reasonable accommodations as needed. If you require accommodations or accessible formats at any point during our hiring process, please let your recruiter know. As an equal opportunity employer our hiring process is designed to put you at ease and help you show your best work. If there’s anything we can do to improve your experience, we’re always open to feedback. Privacy Notice: If you apply for a job at Honeycomb and your application is unsuccessful (or you withdraw from the process or decline our offer), Honeycomb will retain your information after your application for a period of time in accordance with local laws. We retain this information for various reasons, including in case we face a legal challenge in respect of a recruitment decision, to consider you for other current or future jobs at Honeycomb, and to help us better understand, analyze and improve our recruitment processes. For more information regarding our privacy practices please see the Honeycomb Privacy Notice. If you do not want us to retain your information for consideration for other roles, or want us to update it, please contact privacy@honeycomb.io. Please note, however, that we may retain some information if required by law or as necessary to protect ourselves from legal claims.