{"id":3347056,"url":"https://alion.io/job/applied-computing-vp-of-ai","title":"VP of AI","company":{"id":3872728,"name":"Applied Computing","domain":"appliedcomputing.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/appliedcomputing-2","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":118000,"max_usd":222000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":71},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Copilot","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-27T13:19:32Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-27","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T11:03:35Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"At Applied Computing, we’ve built Orbital, a physics-grounded AI copilot that operates inside heavy industrial systems such as refineries, upstream assets, and energy-intensive plants. Orbital combines real-time sensor data, physics-based models, and domain-trained language models to deliver interpretable predictions, anomaly detection, and optimisation recommendations in live production environments.\nThe VP of AI owns the direction, leadership, and commercial relevance of our AI function. This role exists to connect a deep understanding of industrial operations with what AI can deliver: identifying valuable problems, anticipating customer and market needs, and setting the priorities that move research and product development forward.\nYou will work alongside the CEO in customer and strategic discussions, represent AI at board level, and take responsibility for AI decisions, commitments, people, and budget. You must be able to answer “Can we do this?” with a credible view of the opportunity, approach, constraints, and path to delivery.\nThe Director of AI Research reports to you and leads technical research, development, and execution. Your responsibility is to give that team clear direction and protect its ability to deliver by owning the corporate, people, and customer responsibilities around it.\nWhat You’ll Own\nAI strategy, innovation priorities, and the research agenda’s alignment with commercial needs\n\nDecisions about which industrial problems are worth solving and what solutions must achieve\n\nCustomer, executive, and board-level communication on AI\n\nAI commitments and overall accountability for outcomes\n\nLeadership of the AI function, including hiring, budget, and people management\n\nThe working relationship between AI, Product, and Technology\n\nAnticipating opportunities across refining, petrochemicals, and adjacent industrial sectors\n\nCore Responsibilities\n1. Set AI Direction Ahead of Customer Demand\nTranslate company strategy, industrial needs, and commercial opportunities into clear AI priorities\n\nIdentify emerging customer problems and steer research early enough to address them\n\nBalance near-term delivery commitments with investment in future capabilities\n\nDefine the operational problem, intended users, required outcomes, and evidence of success for major AI initiatives\n\nMake clear decisions about what to pursue, defer, or stop\n\n2. Bring Industrial Domain Judgement\nUnderstand how energy and industrial businesses operate, how users make decisions, and where technology can create meaningful value\n\nDistinguish technically interesting opportunities from problems customers will prioritise and adopt solutions for\n\nBring practical judgement about operational constraints, deployment conditions, and user expectations into AI decisions\n\nBuild on experience in refining, petrochemicals, or related energy domains, and develop expertise across adjacent areas such as upstream\n\nKeep research priorities grounded in how solutions will be used in real operating environments\n\n3. Lead Customer and Commercial AI Discussions\nPartner with the CEO on customer calls, strategic relationships, and commercial opportunities\n\nExplain AI capabilities, limitations, and delivery approaches clearly to operational users, technical stakeholders, and executives\n\nMake informed feasibility decisions for established applications and approaches\n\nWork with the Director of AI Research to assess unfamiliar technical problems before making commitments\n\nTranslate customer requests into well-defined problems and credible plans\n\nMaintain trust by surfacing uncertainty, dependencies, and trade-offs early\n\n4. Lead the AI Function and Protect Execution\nManage and support the Director of AI Research, who leads researchers and technical execution\n\nOwn organisational planning, hiring priorities, budget, performance, and people responsibilities across the AI function\n\nGive the Director clear priorities, sufficient context, and the authority to lead technical delivery\n\nHandle stakeholder demands, corporate responsibilities, and escalations so researchers can focus on development and execution\n\nResolve competing priorities and prevent unfiltered customer requests from disrupting agreed work\n\nHold the function accountable for delivery, quality, and operational relevance\n\n5. Turn AI Direction into Working Systems\nWork with the VP of Product and VP of Technology to deliver usable, reliable systems\n\nEstablish clear responsibilities, decision processes, and working arrangements across the three functions\n\nEnsure AI priorities reflect product needs, engineering capacity, and deployment constraints\n\nMaintain oversight from problem definition through deployment and user adoption\n\nAddress delivery risks and cross-functional dependencies early\n\nRepresent AI strategy, progress, investment needs, and risks to the CEO and board\n\nWhat Success Looks Like\nFirst 30 Days\nClear understanding of Orbital’s capabilities, limitations, research priorities, and customer commitments\n\nWorking relationships established with key customers, the Director of AI Research, and the VPs of Product and Technology\n\nDay-to-day leadership of the Director transferred to you\n\nActive leadership of AI discussions alongside the CEO\n\nAn agreed handover covering decisions, relationships, and outstanding commitments\n\nBy 60 Days\nOwnership of AI priorities, customer discussions, hiring, and budget\n\nA clear view of delivery risks and the decisions needed to address them\n\nEffective working arrangements across AI, Product, and Technology\n\nA prioritised research direction informed by customer needs and market opportunities\n\nThe Director and researchers have clear focus and fewer avoidable interruptions\n\nBy 90 Days\nIndependent day-to-day leadership of the AI function\n\nOwnership of executive and board communication on AI\n\nAn agreed AI strategy connecting current delivery with future capabilities\n\nCustomer commitments supported by credible scope, feasibility, and delivery plans\n\nRoutine decisions and escalations handled without dependence on the outgoing AI leader\n\n6-12 Months\nAI capabilities deployed and adopted against valuable industrial problems\n\nResearch investment anticipates emerging customer needs\n\nCustomers trust the company’s AI leadership and commitments\n\nAI, Product, and Technology operate effectively together\n\nA focused research organisation with clear priorities and strong technical leadership\n\nGrowing ability to serve adjacent industrial domains\n\nMust-Have Qualifications\nStrong understanding of oil and gas, petrochemicals, or the wider energy sector, including operational users and commercially valuable problems\n\nExperience taking industrial technology from problem identification through deployment and user adoption\n\nA track record of leading technical teams and owning strategy, hiring, and budget\n\nSufficient understanding of AI and technology delivery to assess established applications, challenge assumptions, and recognise when deeper technical validation is required\n\nExperience leading customer discussions and translating operational needs into actionable technical priorities\n\nAbility to communicate clearly with industrial users, researchers, commercial leaders, and board-level stakeholders\n\nSound judgement under ambiguity, with the confidence to make decisions and take responsibility for commitments\n\nWillingness to learn new industrial domains and travel to customers and sites\n\nNice to Haves\nDeep experience in refining or petrochemicals\n\nExperience delivering AI-enabled industrial solutions\n\nExposure to upstream operations or other energy-intensive industries\n\nExperience leaading within a growing industrial technology business\n\nHow We Work\nIndustrial value and user adoption guide our AI priorities\n\nWe invest ahead of demand while remaining accountable for current commitments\n\nWe make commitments with a clear understanding of feasibility and constraints\n\nWe work with commercial teams and customers, to understand demand and future interests\n\nWe give researchers clear direction and protect their ability to execute\n\nWe surface risks early and take ownership of resolving them\n\nWe judge progress by what works in production\n\nWhat This Role Is Not\nNot a hands-on coding or individual research role\n\nNot a purely advisory position; this role owns decisions, people, budget, and commitments\n\nNot a customer-facing role disconnected from technical feasibility and delivery. Its both.\n\nNot a requirement to know every industrial domain on arrival; the ability and willingness to learn are essential\n\nNot a layer that passes requests through to researchers; this position must prioritise, decide, and lead","description_format":"text","description_chars":8661,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Chemical Manufacturing","Petroleum & Mining Engineering"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-27T17:29:18Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:14","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/applied-computing-vp-of-ai","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/applied-computing-vp-of-ai.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-29T13:11:20Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":19776,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-30T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3872728},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3872728"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fapplied-computing-vp-of-ai"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fapplied-computing-vp-of-ai"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fapplied-computing-vp-of-ai"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/applied-computing-vp-of-ai\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fapplied-computing-vp-of-ai"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3347056}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"appliedcomputing.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3347056},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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