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 steer scope and make trade‑off calls (deep architecture is owned by the Technical Lead).
• Cross‑functional orchestration. Proven ability to lead cross‑functional technical teams without formal authority and keep parallel workstreams aligned under time pressure.
• Commercial acumen. Comfort in and around pricing, contracting (LOI/MOU), and paths to scale.

Preferred

• EPC experience. Direct experience with engineering, procurement & construction firms is a strong plus.
• Co‑innovation motion. Experience standing up or scaling a co‑innovation, customer‑innovation, or "labs" practice.
• Early‑stage products. Experience bridging early‑stage or alpha products with demanding enterprise customers.
• Lifecycle domains. Exposure to Design, Build, Operate, or Protect domains across the asset lifecycle.
• Technical depth. A business‑savvy technical leader (e.g., former solution architect who can also run the room) is welcome in this role.

How You Work

• Comfortable with ambiguity and energized by turning it into clarity.
• A storyteller who can make value and a path‑to‑scale tangible for executives.
• Orchestrator by instinct — you get the best from specialists you don't manage.
• Bilingual across business and technology, fluent enough in each to be trusted by both.
• Outcome‑obsessed and comfortable being the single point of accountability.

About Octave

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 operational data into actionable intelligence, Octave connects expertise, real‑world conditions and enterprise‑scale insight to improve performance, resilience and incident response where it matters most.

Octave has more than 7,000 employees in 45 countries. Learn more at octave.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Why work for Octave?

All in. Always forward. That's the way we do things around here. We put trust in our people because we believe it's the best way to unleash potential, bring ideas to life, and keep moving ahead. And it's why we're committed to creating an environment that's truly supportive, providing you with the resources you need to support your ambitions, no matter who you are or where you are in the world.

Everyone is welcome

At Octave, we believe that diverse and inclusive teams are critical to the success of our people and our business. Here, everyone is welcome. As an inclusive workplace, we don't discriminate. In fact, we embrace differences and are fully committed to creating equal opportunities, an inclusive environment, and fairness for all.

Respect is the cornerstone of how we operate, so speak up and be yourself. You're valued here.

Principal Customer Innovation Lead

Job Location (Short): Rome, Italy

Workplace Type: Hybrid

Req Id: 3314

About Octave

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 operational data into actionable intelligence, Octave connects expertise, real‑world conditions and enterprise‑scale insight to improve performance, resilience and incident response where it matters most.

Octave has more than 7,000 employees in 45 countries. Learn more at octave.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

All in. Always forward. That's the way we do things around here. We put trust in our people because we believe it's the best way to unleash potential, bring ideas to life, and keep moving ahead. And it's why we're committed to creating an environment that's truly supportive, providing you with the resources you need to support your ambitions, no matter who you are or where you are in the world.

At Octave, we believe that diverse and inclusive teams are critical to the success of our people and our business. Here, everyone is welcome. As an inclusive workplace, we don't discriminate. In fact, we embrace differences and fully committed to creating equal opportunities, an inclusive environment, and fairness for all.

Respect is the cornerstone of how we operate, so speak up and be yourself. You're valued here.