VP of AI

Applied Computing was founded in 2024 to build Orbital, a physics-informed foundation model for energy operations. We’re live across oil and gas, refineries, and petrochemicals, working towards our mission: sustainable abundance for a growing planet.

The hydrocarbon industry keeps the world running. But its complexity has left operators tied to legacy systems, making critical decisions on less than 10% of available data.

We built Orbital to change that. It’s a foundation model built specifically for energy that lets companies use AI at scale, harnessing all of their operational data and optimising in real time for any metric. Decisions get faster, operations get safer, and carbon intensity falls.

We’ve raised over $32 million, including one of the largest seed rounds for an AI company in the UK and we’re just getting started.

As VP of AI, you will connect industrial needs with AI capabilities, set direction and own the function’s people, budget and outcomes. You will partner with the CEO on customer opportunities and represent AI at board level.

The Director of AI Research reports to you and leads technical research and execution. You provide clear priorities, credible commitments and the support the team needs to deliver.

What You’ll Own

• AI strategy, research priorities and commercial relevance

• Customer commitments, executive communication and delivery accountability

• People, hiring, budget and collaboration with Product and Technology

Core Responsibilities

1. Set AI Direction Ahead of Customer Demand

Prioritise valuable industrial problems, anticipate customer needs and balance current commitments with future capabilities. Decide what to pursue, defer or stop.

2. Bring Industrial Domain Judgement

Use your understanding of energy operations to guide what we build, grounding decisions in user needs, operational constraints and commercial value.

3. Lead Customer and Commercial AI Discussions

Partner with the CEO to explain capabilities and assess opportunities. Make credible commitments, involving the Director of AI Research where deeper technical validation is needed.

4. Lead the AI Function and Protect Execution

Own hiring, budget, performance and outcomes. Support the Director with clear priorities and authority, resolve competing demands and protect researchers’ focus.

5. Turn AI Direction into Working Systems

Work with Product and Technology from problem definition through deployment and adoption. Clarify responsibilities, address delivery risks and report progress and investment needs to the board.

What Success Looks Like

First 30 Days

Understand Orbital, customer commitments and research priorities. Establish key relationships, take over leadership of the Director and agree the handover while joining customer discussions.

By 60 Days

Own priorities, customer discussions, hiring and budget. Agree how AI, Product and Technology work together, address delivery risks and give researchers a clear focus.

By 90 Days

Lead the function and board communication independently. Agree the AI strategy, support commitments with credible plans and resolve routine decisions without the outgoing AI leader.

6–12 Months

Deliver AI capabilities customers adopt. Build trusted customer relationships, effective cross-functional delivery and a focused research organisation that anticipates demand and expands into adjacent domains.

Must-Have Qualifications

• Strong understanding of oil and gas, petrochemicals or energy operations and customer needs

• Experience taking industrial technology from problem definition to deployment and adoption

• A track record of leading technical teams and owning strategy, hiring and budget

• AI judgement to assess established applications, challenge assumptions and recognise when specialist validation is needed

• Confidence leading customer discussions and communicating with researchers, industrial users, executives and boards

• Sound decisions under uncertainty, ownership of commitments and willingness to learn new domains and travel

Nice to Haves

• Deep refining or petrochemicals expertise, or exposure to upstream and other energy-intensive industries

• Experience delivering industrial AI and leading within a growing technology business

How We Work

Solve valuable industrial problems. Invest ahead of demand and commit with evidence. Give researchers clear direction and room to execute. Own risks early and judge progress by what customers use in production.

What This Role Is Not

• A hands-on coding, individual research or purely advisory role

• A customer-facing role detached from technical feasibility, or a layer that simply passes requests to researchers

• A requirement to know every industrial domain on arrival; learning is essential