Industry Solution Leader - Food & Agriculture (Food Manufacturing)
About this role
Professionals who thrive at the intersection of heavy industry and advanced software will find a natural home in this role. C3 AI seeks an Industry Solution Leader focused on food manufacturing to guide the design and deployment of enterprise artificial intelligence applications for clients. This position combines senior domain expertise with end-to-end delivery ownership, bridging the gap between factory floor operations and cutting-edge machine learning technology.
The person who takes on this challenge will work directly with customer engineering, maintenance, and executive teams while directing cross-functional squads of forward-deployed engineers, data scientists, and product specialists. Responsibilities include identifying high-value operational opportunities, defining technical architecture, and ensuring that analytical solutions align with physical plant realities. The role exists to drive measurable business outcomes in asset-intensive environments by translating complex manufacturing problems into scalable software solutions.
What you will do
- Manage the overall solution strategy, technical direction, and delivery outcomes for assigned customer engagements from initial problem definition through production scale.
- Act as the primary customer-facing domain expert to build a deep understanding of facility operations, equipment, processes, and business objectives.
- Identify and quantify high-impact opportunities across equipment reliability, maintenance, production performance, process optimization, and energy efficiency.
- Translate complex engineering hurdles into structured artificial intelligence, machine learning, and optimization problems with clear success criteria.
- Direct cross-functional groups of data scientists, forward-deployed engineers, and product managers to align technical priorities with customer outcomes.
- Collaborate directly with plant operators, engineers, and executives to validate solution performance, operational workflows, and business impact.
- Partner with internal product and engineering teams to identify reusable capabilities and scale successful deployments across multiple facilities.
What you need
- Hold a bachelor's degree in engineering or a closely related technical discipline.
- Bring at least seven years of experience in engineering, manufacturing, operations, reliability, maintenance, industrial technology, or technical consulting.
- Possess deep operational experience in food or beverage plant environments, including continuous or batch processing, packaging, and utilities.
- Demonstrate a strong understanding of industrial equipment, production processes, process controls, maintenance practices, and operational workflows.
- Show hands-on experience working with industrial data such as sensor time-series, equipment states, alarms, maintenance history, and quality information.
- Demonstrate the ability to lead complex, customer-facing technical engagements while working directly with engineering and executive stakeholders.
- Possess excellent presentation, written communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills along with the ability to travel to customer locations.
Nice to have
- Experience delivering artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, optimization, or predictive maintenance solutions.
- Hands-on technical background working with industrial data, SQL, Python, analytics tools, or application configuration.
- Experience with rotating equipment, electrical systems, manufacturing lines, process units, or other complex industrial assets.
- Experience taking technical solutions from initial proof of value through production deployment and scale across multiple facilities.
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What kind of travel is expected for this role?
The position requires the ability to travel to customer locations as required.
What is the salary range for this position?
The salary range for this role is $130,000 — $203,000 USD.
What specific industry background is required?
Candidates should have hands-on experience in food or beverage plant operations, with direct exposure to continuous or batch processing, packaging, and utilities.