Principal Customer Innovation Lead

About

The Role
Octave partners with the world's leading industrial and engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) organizations to turn ambiguous, high-value problems into productizable AI solutions. We do this through CoLabs — structured, time‑boxed co‑innovation engagements run in an 11‑week cycle across three stage gates, spanning our four portfolio pillars across the asset lifecycle:
Design, Build, Operate, and Protect.

The Engagement Leader (EL) is the core resource of this model. As an EL, you own a strategic customer relationship in its entirety and are accountable for the outcomes of their CoLab engagement. You sit across the table from senior industrial executives, shape their fuzziest problems into scoped use cases with a clear value hypothesis, and orchestrate a cross‑functional squad to prove real value in weeks — not quarters.

You are the single point of accountability the customer and Octave leadership both look to for whether an engagement is on track and creating value.

Each EL is dedicated to one customer and may run up to two use cases in parallel. Each use case is delivered by a squad — a Technical Lead, an engineering team, and a pillar rep who carries the authority of the relevant portfolio pillar. You don't manage the squad as direct reports; you set direction and own the 'what and why,' partnering closely with the Technical Lead on the 'how.'

You also serve as the conduit that channels what each engagement learns back into Octave's product pillars.

Own the customer relationship. Hold trusted‑advisor status with senior stakeholders (engineering, digital/IT, innovation sponsors) and navigate their organization and priorities.

Frame ambiguous problems. Turn ill‑defined customer pain into scoped use cases with a clear value hypothesis; own the Gate 1 intake and use case canvas.

Lead the engagement. Run the structured 11‑week, three‑gate cycle and keep up to two parallel use cases progressing on time and on value.

Orchestrate the squads. Direct cross‑functional squads (Technical Lead, engineering, pillar rep), aligning business intent with technical execution.

Tell the value story. Build and deliver the value narrative at each gate; make ROI and a credible path‑to‑scale tangible for executives.

Drive productization. Surface signals from customer work back to the relevant pillar so learnings feed the product roadmap.

Support commercial motion. Contribute to pricing, LOI/MOU, and scale conversations alongside customer and Octave leadership.

We strongly encourage internal colleagues across EMEA who are excited by this opportunity and bring relevant customer, product, industry, or technical experience to apply. Your knowledge of Octave, our customers, and how we work can be a strong advantage in this role. If you are interested but do not meet every listed qualification, we still encourage you to apply and explore the opportunity with the hiring team.

Qualifications

Delivery / engagement leadership. 10+ years of experience, with several years owning senior customer relationships and being personally accountable for delivery outcomes — e.g., in management consulting, professional services, or a client‑facing role at an enterprise software / AI / digital‑transformation firm.

Heavy‑industry grounding. Demonstrated experience working with heavy industry (industrial, engineering, energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, or similar), including how such organizations operate and buy.

Ambiguity to structure. A track record of shaping ill‑defined problems into scoped, valued initiatives.

Executive presence. Credibility and gravitas with senior executives; able to lead the room and build trust quickly.

AI & product fluency. Conversant in AI, agentic solutions, and enterprise data — enough to…