Lead Engineer, Customer Innovation

Job Location (Short):
Madison, Alabama-USA

Workplace Type:
Remote

Req

The Customer Innovation team sits at the most exciting intersection in the company: where Octave's platform capabilities meet the hardest, most consequential problems our strategic customers are trying to solve. This team doesn't wait for the roadmap — they're out in front of it, co‑building with customers, stress‑testing new ideas, and turning bold concepts into working reality fast.

As Lead Engineer on this team, you'll be the technical engine behind that work. You'll partner directly with strategic customers and internal product teams to design and build prototypes, AI pilots, and reference architectures that showcase what's possible on the Octave platform — and that pull the product roadmap forward in the process. You're equally comfortable in a customer workshop and a code editor, and you know how to build things quickly without building them carelessly.

• Co‑Innovation Engineering Partner — With strategic customers — EPCs, asset owners, public safety organizations — to understand their hardest operational problems and engineer solutions that leverage the Octave platform. Lead the technical design and hands‑on development of co‑innovation engagements from initial concept through working proof of concept.
• AI Pilot Development — Architect and build customer‑facing AI pilots that demonstrate real‑world value of Octave's AI capabilities — including agent‑based workflows, predictive models, and intelligent automation embedded in industrial operations. Translate ambiguous customer challenges into structured, testable prototypes.
• Rapid Prototyping for Product Teams — Serve as a rapid prototyping resource for internal product teams — building functional spikes and reference implementations that de‑risk architectural decisions and accelerate roadmap clarity. Be the person who answers "can we actually build that?" with a working demo, not a slide.
• Reference Architectures & Integrations — Develop reusable reference architectures and integration patterns that codify how Octave connects with the broader industrial software ecosystem — including AVEVA, SAP, SCADA systems, GIS platforms, and third‑party data sources. Build once, enable many.
• Technical Thought Leadership — Represent Octave's technical depth externally — contributing to customer workshops, industry events, and technical content that positions Octave as the innovation leader in industrial SaaS. Help customers see possibilities they hadn't imagined.
• Feedback Loop to Product — Systematically capture and translate insights from customer engagements into actionable product intelligence. Be a credible, technically grounded voice in roadmap conversations — bridging what customers need today with what the platform should become.

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful exposure to customer‑facing or pre‑product roles such as solutions engineering, applied research, or innovation labs
• Demonstrated experience building production‑quality prototypes and proof‑of‑concept systems under real‑time pressure
• Background in industrial software, engineering applications, GIS, asset management, or adjacent enterprise domains is a strong differentiator
• Experience integrating complex enterprise systems and working with industrial data formats and protocols

• Full‑stack proficiency with modern web technologies — React, Type Script, Node.js or equivalent backend stack
• Strong experience with AI/ML integration — LLM APIs, agent orchestration frameworks (Lang Chain, CrewAI, or similar), and embedding AI capabilities into enterprise workflows
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerized deployment
• Experience with data pipeline architecture, REST/Graph
  
  QL APIs, and enterprise integration patterns

Octave provides mission‑critical software that empowers organizations to make informed decisions across every stage of the asset lifecycle — Design, Build, Operate and Protect — where performance, safety, and reliability are non‑negotiable and failure is not an option.

Turning complex…