Senior Specialist - Production Engineer

AIQ; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Education support for dependents

Leave benefits

Job summary

AIQ in Abu Dhabi is seeking a Senior Specialist - Production Engineer (Petroleum SME) to lead ESP and gas-lift workflows, translating field experience into reliable digital solutions.

You will collaborate with software engineers and controls specialists to progress from diagnosis to validated closed-loop operation, ensuring safe and efficient well performance across offshore and onshore assets.

Qualifications

• Degree in Petroleum Engineering with substantial production experience.
• Strong ESP engineering expertise in selection, diagnosis and optimization.
• Experience delivering digital well surveillance or automation workflows.
• Familiarity with PTA concepts and field data for lift decisions.
• Hands-on with historical replay, SCADA/historian data and tests.
• Clear communication of requirements to engineers and developers.

Responsibilities

• Define ESP and pump/operating range surveillance workflows.
• Develop gas-lift and natural-flow workflows within facility constraints.
• Build and calibrate well-performance models using nodal analysis.
• Specify virtual flow meters, sensor validation and anomaly detection.
• Translate practices into start-up/shutdown and optimisation logic.
• Lead validation from historical replay to closed-loop pilots.
• Support field trials and measure production and reliability gains.

Skills

ESP engineering

Gas-lift experience

Nodal-analysis

Digital surveillance

Control systems

Python/SQL for analysis

PROSPER

PIPESIM

DesignRite

Education

Petroleum Engineering degree

Tools

PROSPER

PIPESIM

DesignRite

Job description

Job Description:

About The Company:

AIQ is an Abu Dhabi-based technology company that develops and deploys industrial artificial intelligence (AI) technologies at scale, focused on the energy sector. As a venture between Presight (G42) and ADNOC, AIQ has productized 15 AI-enabled solutions that support clients to perform better, protect teams and equipment, keep operations sustainable, and rapidly scale successes. The organization embraces an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, looking to push boundaries and solve transformational challenges across industry. It welcomes professionals that share the desire to make meaningful and impactful contributions to the mission to deliver responsible AI to the heart of industrial processes. Always on the forefront of technology, AIQ provides its talent with an environment to thrive and excel. Working at AIQ includes participating in some of the most significant industrial transformation projects, interacting with massive data pools, utilizing sophisticated AI infrastructure that is powered by a NVIDIA GPU cloud computing platform, and access to abundant computing, storage, and network resources made available from across the G42 ecosystem.

Overview:

Job Title: Senior Specialist - Production Engineer (Petroleum SME)

Artificial Lift and Autonomous Well Operations

AIQ Production Domain | Principal individual contributor

Location: Abu Dhabi | Reports to: Christophe Van Laer

The role

AIQ is building software and AI products for well surveillance, artificial-lift optimisation and autonomous production. We are seeking a petroleum production engineer who has improved the performance of real wells and can translate that experience into reliable digital products. You will provide the engineering leadership for electric submersible pump (ESP), gas-lift and naturally flowing well workflows, working with software engineers, AI scientists and controls specialists to progress from diagnosis and recommendations to validated closed-loop operation.

Responsibilities:

• Define surveillance and optimisation workflows for ESP wells, including pump selection and operating range, intake conditions, free gas, motor loading and temperature, vibration, variable-speed drive settings and failure diagnosis.
• Develop gas-lift and naturally flowing well workflows covering injection performance, valve behaviour, unloading and instability, choke response and network backpressure. Evaluate well settings within shared gas-supply and facility constraints.
• Build, calibrate and challenge well-performance models using nodal analysis, inflow and outflow relationships, fluid properties and equipment data. Partner with the PTA SME to separate reservoir or skin changes from lift, wellbore and measurement effects.
• Define engineering requirements for virtual flow metering, sensor validation, anomaly detection and equipment-health models. Specify reference measurements, uncertainty, alarm usefulness and the conditions that require engineering review.
• Translate operating practices into decision logic for start-up, shutdown, recovery and optimisation. Work with controls and operational-technology specialists on operating envelopes, permissives, setpoint and ramp limits, fallback behaviour and operator override.
• Lead engineering validation from historical replay and simulation through advisory pilots to supervised closed-loop trials. Define acceptance criteria for degraded sensors, communications loss and unfamiliar operating conditions, alongside normal performance.
• Support field trials, investigate failures and measure production, energy and reliability outcomes against credible baselines. Convert lessons into reusable requirements, benchmark cases and operator guidance, and support customer adoption and technical demonstrations.

Qualifications:

Essential experience

• Degree in Petroleum Engineering, or a related engineering degree with substantial petroleum production engineering experience. Typically 12 or more years of relevant experience, including recent hands-on work with producing wells.
• Deep ESP engineering expertise demonstrated through selection, diagnosis, optimisation and operational troubleshooting. Substantive gas-lift operating or optimisation experience is also required, with the ability to diagnose performance beyond a single equipment vendor.
• Strong well-performance and nodal-analysis capability, including fluid properties, multiphase flow, inflow and outflow relationships and the interaction between reservoir deliverability and artificial lift.
• Delivery of digital well surveillance, remote optimisation or automation workflows into routine field use. Experience defining operational requirements and validating solutions with software, analytics or controls teams.
• Practical understanding of Pressure Transient Analysis (PTA) results and their limitations. Ability to apply changes in reservoir pressure, productivity and skin to lift decisions, with specialist interpretations owned by the PTA SME.
• Hands-on use of PROSPER, PIPESIM, DesignRite or equivalent well and lift engineering tools. Ability to work with historian or SCADA data, well tests, equipment records and operating-event histories.
• Experience defining safe operating envelopes and participating in operational change reviews. Clear understanding of supervisory optimisation, regulatory control and independent safety protection, and when optimisation should stop.
• Evidence of field improvements supported by data, technical leadership and effective collaboration with operators. Professional English communication and the ability to write requirements that engineers and developers can implement.

Preferred Experience

• Supervised closed-loop deployments, advanced process control, model predictive control, edge applications or integration between production software and control-room systems.
• Physics-based or hybrid AI models, virtual flow metering, equipment reliability analysis, automated diagnostic workflows, or Python/SQL for engineering analysis.
• Offshore and Middle East operations, intelligent completions or downhole gas-lift valves. Experience with other lift methods is useful as the product expands.

Your contribution to the product team

You own production and lift requirements and domain validation. Controls specialists own control-system design and integration, with customer approval for field changes. You partner with the integrated-production SME on field constraints and target feasibility. Supervisory optimisation must preserve independent protection and the operator’s ability to intervene.

What Working At AIQ Offers:

Culture: Encouraging initiative, work in an environment that is fast-paced and varied, surrounded by talented peers from around the world, who are similarly attracted to applying their skills to solve transformational challenges.

Career: Join a team in which your contribution is recognized and rewarded, while you are supported to operate at your peak performance.

Rewards: An attractive renumeration package that includes healthcare, education support for dependents, leave benefits, and more.