Senior AI Group Leader, China

AVEVA; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough; On-site; GBP 220,000 - 494,000; Full time

Job summary

AVEVA invites a visionary Senior Leader to establish and head a new AI Group in China, shaping the AI strategy across technology, portfolio and business. The role will recruit and mentor a high-calibre team, translate frontier AI into industrial applications, and drive governance and stakeholder engagement with global and local leaders.

You will collaborate with R&D, product, sales and customer success to deliver market-defining AI solutions while ensuring responsible deployment and regulatory

Qualifications

• 12+ years of AI experience with at least 5 years in leadership of complex AI portfolios.
• Deep knowledge of modern AI paradigms such as world models, foundation models, and multi-modal language models.
• Experience with responsible deployment practices, model drift mitigation, privacy-preserving federating learning, and AI governance best practices.
• Proven experience shipping AI capabilities to production in the China market.
• Master's degree or PhD in CS/Engineering; fluency in Mandarin and English.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the China-specific AI strategy across technology, portfolio and business.
• Recruit, onboard, and develop a new AI Group team in China; foster innovation and AI excellence.
• Translate emerging AI technologies into real industrial use cases for AVEVA customers.
• Serve as the voice of the China market; gather feedback and regulatory insights to inform product direction.
• Lead the creation and prioritization of AI requirements, roadmaps, and governance across cross-functional teams.
• Partner with Portfolio, R&D, Sales, Marketing and Customer Success to ensure AI roadmap adoption and lifecycle management.

Skills

AI leadership

Python & DL frameworks

Mandarin & English

Strategic planning

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Master's degree in CS/Engineering

PhD preferred

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

JAX

Cloud platforms (AliCloud, AWS, GCP, Azure)

Job description

AVEVA is a global leader in industrial software. Our cutting-edge solutions are used by thousands of enterprises to deliver the essentials of life – such as energy, infrastructure, chemicals and minerals – safely, efficiently and more sustainably.

We’re the first software business in the world to have our sustainability targets validated by the SBTi, and we’ve been recognized for the transparency and ambition of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ve also recently been named as one of the world’s most innovative companies.

If you’re a curious and collaborative person who wants to make a big impact through technology, then we want to hear from you! Find out more at AVEVA Careers.

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We are seeking a visionary and accomplished Senior Leader to establish and lead a new, multi-disciplinary AI Group in China. This is a high-visibility, high-impact leadership role pivotal to ensuring AVEVA’s AI strategy, existing and roadmap AI capabilities are aligned with the unique needs of the China market and can deliver market defining AI solutions and global and local stakeholder engagements. We are specifically keen on individuals with deep understanding of frontier and emerging AI and ML technologies and can bridge across advanced AI, ML product management, engineering, and AI business.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Group Strategy & Planning: Define and drive the China-specific AI strategy (across technology, portfolio and business) in alignment with global objectives. Identify emerging AI technologies and market opportunities and translate them into actionable, differentiate AI portfolio roadmaps and strategic external partner plans
• Team Formation & Leadership: Recruit, onboard, and develop a new AI Group team in China. Foster a culture of innovation, agility, and AI excellence. Provide coaching, career development, and succession planning
• Source & Translate Emerging AI Technologies: For Industrial AI applications, deeply understand AI and ML advances, navigate ambiguity and make thoughtful trade-offs in both 0 to 1 and ongoing lifecycle management environments to identify opportunities where AI can help address value-driven and real-world use case for industrial customers in the China market
• Market & Customer Insight: Serve as the voice of the China market for AI. Gather and synthesize customer feedback, competitive intelligence, and regulatory insights to inform product direction.
• Requirements Management: Lead the creation and prioritization of AI requirements documents and end-to-end roadmap, prioritizing features, data constraints, model performance, and plans based on customer use cases, scientific and technological advancements, and broader industrial sector analysis. Ensure clarity and alignment across engineering, product, and commercial teams
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner cross-functionally (Portfolio, R&D, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success) to ensure competitive and successful AI roadmap, capabilities launches, lifecycle management, and AI business health.
• Commercial Support: Partner with China commercial teams around commercial model, pricing, go-to-market and customer success
• Governance & Reporting: Establish KPIs, manage budgets, and report progress to global and regional leadership. Ensure transparency and accountability across the AI portfolio lifecycle

Essential Requirements

• 12+ years of experience with at least 5 years in an AI technical leadership role for complex AI portfolios covering both emerging 0 to 1 and established AI products
• Recent experience with modern AI paradigms such as world models, foundation models, and multi-modal language models; agent-based systems and orchestration; and context retrieval and augmentation techniques
• Experience in responsible deployment practices, model drift mitigation, privacy-preserving federating learning, and AI governance best practices
• Exceptional technical background with deep intuition for AI in highly regulated industries and proven experience having recently shipped code or emerging AI capabilities to production in China market
• Excellent judgment in prioritizing between emerging AI technologies and existing ones for right-sized and industrial sector relevant features, architectural improvements and revenue entitlement
• Expertise in Python and deep experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g., Jax, TensorFlow, PyTorch) and state-of-the-art ML techniques (building, training, evaluating, deploying ML models)
• Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional and matrixed teams, and present complex technical information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Fluent in Mandarin and English
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Physics, Engineering or a related technical field; Ph. D degree preferred

Desired skills and Competencies

• Experience in at least two regulated industries (e.g., life sciences, manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, asset-intensive industries, material science, etc.)
• Experience analyzing technical, scientific and market data for emerging AI technologies
• Experience deploying ML models in China and global cloud environments (Ali Cloud, AWS, GCP or Azure) in addition to work across on-prem, edge, and cloud-connected architectures
• Experience structuring complex global and local strategic partnerships for emerging technologies
• Familiarity with MLOps practices (model versioning, evaluation, monitoring, iteration)
• Experience working in both enterprise and start up environments

What Success Looks Like

• Ability to meaningfully drive and integrate (where appropriate) AI roadmaps and emerging technology direction
• Strong AI capabilities intuition, making thoughtful prioritization and sequencing decisions
• AI capabilities are scalable and successfully applied to real industrial problems, not just conceptual designs
• Adoption of AI capabilities by customers and external partners in China market with measurable ROI
• Balance bold industrial AI innovation with responsible, secure deployment practices
• Strong collaboration with cross-functional and matrixed, technical and non-technical teams

AVEVA requires all successful applicants to undergo and pass a comprehensive background check before they start employment. Background checks will be conducted in accordance with local laws and may, subject to those laws, include proof of educational attainment, employment history verification, proof of work authorization, criminal records, identity verification, credit check. Certain positions dealing with sensitive and/or third party personal data may involve additional background check criteria.

AVEVA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to being an exemplary employer with an inclusive culture, developing a workplace environment where all our employees are treated with dignity and respect. We value diversity and the expertise that people from different backgrounds bring to our business.

Come and join AVEVA to create the transformative technology that enables our customers to engineer a better world.