Head of Applied AI Research

We're privileged to be helping the UK's leading energy technology platform to hire their first Head of Applied AI Research.

The energy grid is one of the most complex, data-rich, highest-stakes systems on the planet. Our client has built the operating system for it.

You've likely heard of them through their flagship client, who powers 40% of the UK energy market. They process 15 billion data points daily across 70 million households worldwide, hold $500m in contracted ARR, and are expanding rapidly across Europe, Australia, Japan and the US.

They are, by any measure, the leading AI-driven energy technology platform in the world.

They are now building their applied AI research function from scratch, and they need a technical leader to build it with them.

THE ROLE

Reporting directly to the Chief AI Officer, the Head of Applied AI Research will shape the company's AI research agenda, build and lead a team of applied AI researchers, and drive the creation of proprietary foundation models for energy. You will work at the intersection of frontier research and real-world product impact, partnering with product teams to translate research into commercial advantage, and contributing to M&A and strategic technology decisions at the executive level.

This is not a publications role. It is a role for someone who wants to do serious science and see it matter.

WHAT YOU BRING

• PhD in Machine Learning from a leading research institution
• 7+ years leading applied AI research teams in a commercial environment with access to large-scale, unique data
• Deep expertise in at least two of: LLMs and foundation models (pretraining, fine-tuning, distillation), physics-informed neural networks, or reinforcement learning
• Experience with agent frameworks, tool-use planning and workflow orchestration
• Systems-level fluency across data pipelines, training infrastructure and inference (PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow)
• Strong MLOps discipline: CI/CD for models, offline/online evaluation, safety and guardrails
• The ability to influence at exec level and mentor senior technical talent

Energy domain experience is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.

WHAT'S ON OFFER

• Base salary £200,000 - £300,000
• Significant equity package
• Flexible hybrid working
• 10% pension matching
• 16 weeks full-pay maternity leave, 12 weeks partner leave
• Private health insurance, L&D budget, flexible holiday policy

***THIS IS A HYBRID ROLE THAT CAN BE BASED IN LONDON, PARIS or NYC. WE ARE HAPPY TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS FROM FOREIGN CANDIDATES WHO MEET ALL THE REQUIREMENTS***

ABOUT HIGHER

Higher is a specialist AI executive search firm. We work exclusively with companies building at the frontier of AI and deep tech.

This search is being conducted confidentially on behalf of our client. To be considered, please apply or reach out directly to Kelly Gauthier at kelly@highersearch.co.