Principal AI & Data Scientist — Enterprise ML Leader

Equinor ASA; Georgia; On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Equinor seeks a Principal Data Scientist to lead AI initiatives in the Houston-based Design, Software and Data Science team within Technology, Digital and Innovation. The role connects ML, optimization, RL and agentic AI with safe, scalable delivery for operational and business-critical settings.

You will guide complex AI projects, align stakeholders and translate business questions into actionable analytical solutions, driving measurable value across operations and energy markets.

Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in operations research, applied mathematics, computer science, data science, control/automation, engineering or a related discipline.
• Strong experience delivering production-grade AI/ML solutions with data pipelines and MLOps.
• Ability to translate ambiguous business questions into analytical plans and measurable outcomes.
• Deep expertise in ML, optimization, reinforcement learning, decision science or advanced AI, with enterprise impact.
• Experience leading technical tasks with multiple contributors in industrial environments.

Responsibilities

• Drive complex AI deliveries from framing to implemented solutions with stakeholder alignment.
• Provide professional support linking optimization, RL, forecasting, and agentic AI to practical decisions.
• Manage uncertainty with bounded autonomy, confidence signaling, and auditable decisions.
• Improve performance, reliability and cost efficiency across development, evaluation and inference.
• Combine agentic AI with optimization or Bayesian methods for planning and decision support.
• Coach colleagues on advanced AI topics and elevate digital and analytical maturity.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Communication skills

Analytical problem solving

Leading complex AI projects

Risk and safety judgement

Education

Master’s or PhD in OR/Math/CS/Data Science/Engineering

Tools

Azure

Databricks

Kubernetes

Python

CI/CD

MLflow

Job description

Equinor seeks a Principal Data Scientist to lead AI initiatives in the Houston-based Design, Software and Data Science team within Technology, Digital and Innovation. The role connects ML, optimization, RL and agentic AI with safe, scalable delivery for operational and business-critical settings.

You will guide complex AI projects, align stakeholders and translate business questions into actionable analytical solutions, driving measurable value across operations and energy markets.