AI Opportunity Lead

The opportunity

Identify and shape promising AI opportunities for Hitachi Energy and turn them into focused, testable validation questions. As AI Opportunity Lead in the Technology Validation team, part of Hitachi Energy's Data, Analytics & Artificial Intelligence (DAAI) organization, you connect emerging AI capabilities to credible Hitachi Energy scenarios, build internal and external partnerships and coordinate selected validation work from first question to recommendation. You will also help shape how a newly established team works with its stakeholders.

How you will make an impact

• Proactively explore emerging AI capabilities (GenAI, agentic AI, multimodal models, selected ML), including through hands-on prototyping and AI-assisted coding. Identify those worth validating before any formal demand exists.
• Work with the AI Research Engineer and AI Experimentation Engineer to turn promising technologies into plausible Hitachi Energy scenarios and focused validation questions, distinguishing confirmed demand from opportunity hypotheses.
• Build working relationships with DAAI teams, Hitachi Group peers, strategic vendors, startups and approved suppliers, in line with procurement, confidentiality and security processes.
• Assess technology, vendor capability and practical constraints to decide which opportunities merit hands-on validation.
• Coordinate selected validations across the team (sequencing, evidence synthesis, demonstrations, next-step recommendations) without line-management authority. Keep a concise, visible pipeline with the Global Technology Validation Manager.
• Help establish the team's working practices, stakeholder interfaces and partnerships.

Your background

• A genuine passion for AI: you try new tools and models on your own initiative and can show a recent example of something you built or tried.
• 3+ years of experience in innovation, technology opportunity development, product or program management, AI, or strategy in a technology setting.
• Strong working knowledge of current AI with hands-on use of the tools. You can frame an unclear idea as a focused question with defined evidence.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence without formal authority, in a team that is still shaping its processes.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience. A degree in computer science, data science, engineering or business informatics is an advantage.
• Fluent English.