From consulting to building AI agents: Why I joined Decagon

When I joined a consulting firm after my MBA, I was drawn by the talent, steep learning curve, and exposure to hard problems across industries. Every project felt like a crash course in a new domain, and I thrived in that environment. I loved feeling like I was constantly learning something new.

But after a few years, I started to feel an itch I couldn’t ignore. My projects increasingly gravitated towards AI: 

• “How should we include AI in our product strategy?”
• “How should we organize our talent to optimize for AI density?”
• “How do I transform our business with AI?”

I had a creeping sense that I was sitting on the sidelines. Having started my career as an operator, I missed the excitement of building in a fast-moving landscape.

As I thought about what was next, I noticed many of my peers were moving into strategy roles at Big Tech companies. But I didn’t want to continue advising; I wanted to own something end-to-end, whether that was a product, a P&L, or customer relationships. More than anything, I wanted to get hands-on with AI, to learn by building at a company where AI was the core of the business rather than just another initiative.

From advisor to builder

When I joined the Agent Product Management team at Decagon, I was struck by the range of backgrounds on the team: former investors, engineers, Big Tech PMs, and startup operators. At first, I was unsure whether my consulting toolkit would hold up in a role that blends the technical depth of a forward-deployed engineer with the go-to-market instincts of an operator. 

But in my six months here, I’ve found that consulting skills map incredibly well. Agent PMs need to excel in three core areas, each playing well to a consultant’s strengths:

1. Customer navigation: We often partner with large enterprises going through their first major AI transformation, with initiatives that span multiple stakeholders, functions, and incentives. Consultants are no stranger to navigating complex org dynamics and driving alignment across executives, product teams, and operators, which is critical to success.
   
   
2. 80/20 execution: We move fast and focus on what drives the most ROI. The same instincts that help you cut through noise and prioritize impact in consulting are what allow us to ship MVPs that deliver real results quickly.
   
   
3. Creating structure from ambiguity: No two AI deployments look the same. There’s rarely a playbook. The ability to create structure, define the “answer framework,” and move forward confidently in uncertain territory is exactly what makes former consultants thrive in this role.

Inside the work

At Decagon, Agent PMs are the connective tissue across the company and the voice of the customer within the business. We own a portfolio of AI agents end-to-end: scoping, designing, deploying, and optimizing them in production.

Because Agent PMs work across product, engineering, and go-to-market, you end up seeing how the entire business operates. It’s one of the few roles where you can literally watch strategy turn into product and product turn into impact. One week, you might be whiteboarding new product functionality with our core product and engineering teams. The next, you could be sitting in an executive meeting with a Fortune 500 customer helping to define their long-term AI roadmap. Much like consulting, we collaborate with leading organizations tackling some of their biggest challenges. 

This 360 degree view of the business, paired with building directly with customers, makes this one of the most impactful operator roles in the AI era. With high-ownership in a fast-moving environment, you get to work directly with world-class AI talent, translate complex business challenges into production-ready agents, and shape how the world’s largest enterprises adopt AI at scale.

You’ll build deep intuition on AI agents, learn to manage trade-offs, and deliver measurable business impact. These are the same skills that set people up to become founders, general managers, or senior product leaders. It’s the kind of experience that transforms abstract strategy into practical execution and builds a confidence that you carry into everything that comes next.

Making the leap

Being an Agent PM at Decagon has combined everything I loved about consulting — the people, the pace, the problem-solving — with the tangible satisfaction of building something real.

If you’re in consulting and ready to move beyond advising, there’s no better opportunity right now. We’re growing the team and hiring across levels, especially individuals currently in Manager, Project Leader, or Engagement Manager roles. 

If you’re ready to make the leap from advisor to builder, this is your moment. Come help us build what’s next.