Sr. Manager / Lead Architect Agentic and Generative AI

Important! To make sure your application is considered, please submit it before the end of the day on (dd.mm.yyyy): 05.06.2026 We encourage candidates to apply as soon as possible. What does the job involve? Shape the AI foundation of one of Europe's leading energy companies—defining how agentic systems are designed, governed, and scaled for mission-critical impact. Equinor is building the foundation for enterprise-scale agentic AI, and this role offers a unique opportunity to set direction at company scale. You will define architecture and guide the delivery of agent and LLM-powered products that reshape how insight is generated, workflows are automated, and decisions are supported across engineering, operations, HSE, supply chain, and corporate functions. What will my tasks be? Within this position, your key tasks will be to: Define and evolve the enterprise reference architecture for agentic and generative AI, establishing the standards, decision principles, and guardrails that will shape how these capabilities scale across Equinor. Partner with AI and ML engineering teams to deliver production-grade agentic systems: orchestration, grounded retrieval, structured LLM integrations with enterprise APIs, MCP-based tool/data access, and multimodal document understanding. Lead solution strategy, technology choices, and architectural blueprints; align senior stakeholders, engineering teams, and strategic partners; and provide technical leadership from early concept through scaled deployment. Embed safety, compliance, and privacy by design; align with GDPR and the EU AI Act; enforce policy as code and safe tool execution; and manage uncertainty in non-deterministic systems by surfacing confidence, bounding autonomy, routing to human oversight, and providing safe fallback and rollback paths. Raise engineering quality and long-term capability by driving performance, reliability, and cost efficiency while mentoring others and building reusable foundations for future AI solutions. Here's what we expect from you: At Equinor, there are some overall qualities we regard as essential. We want you to identify with the values that guide our decisions and help us succeed and grow: open, collaborative, courageous and caring. We expect you to make safety your priority and to contribute to our zero-harm culture. And for this specific position, we are also looking for: Required qualifications Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, Linguistics, or related field. Deep architectural experience across data, model, and application layers, with strong judgment on trade-offs, scalability, risk, and compliance in enterprise AI systems. Proven leadership in navigating ambiguity, shaping technical direction, aligning senior stakeholders, and translating AI strategy into business-aligned execution. Hands-on experience with modern LLMs and agent frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, LangChain/LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel). NLP and generative AI expertise, including prompt design, RAG architectures, model evaluation, and practical experience with major LLM providers and open-source models. Solid Python and software engineering fundamentals (testing, CI/CD, version control). A strong track record of delivering end-to-end AI solutions from concept to measurable business value. Preferred qualifications Recognized thought leadership through mentoring, publishing, speaking, patents, or stewardship of influential open-source initiatives. Multimodal AI: document and image understanding, diagram Q&A, speech-to-text (e.g. Whisper). Responsible AI: PII handling, red-teaming, content moderation, risk assessment, regulatory compliance. Containers and cloud: Docker, Kubernetes; Azure (Azure ML, AKS, Azure OpenAI, storage, networking). Enterprise integration: APIs, events/messaging, standardised data and tool access via MCP. Why join us? If you are motivated by the chance to shape enterprise AI at scale, solve technically demanding problems with real-world consequence, and leave a lasting mark on how a major energy company applies AI responsibly, we would love to hear from you. What can we offer you? We want you to have a rewarding and fulfilling work life. That's why we offer: Not just a job - a career In Equinor, your development begins on day one. You will build your competence through a wide range of learning activities while being empowered to build your career across multiple disciplines and geographies. Our internal job market allows a wide range of opportunities for development and growth within your own field, or even in other areas you find interesting and relevant. Attractive rewards We give you a comprehensive benefits package with a competitive salary, global parental leave, bonus scheme and pension plan. Wellness and work-life balance We care about and prioritise our employees' well-being. We know that for you to be the best version of yourself in the workplace, being able to collect your children, attend a class or simply enjoy social time can be invaluable. That's why we encourage you to make use of our flexible work arrangements wherever possible. An inclusive culture We believe embracing our differences makes us stronger. For us, true inclusion means being able to bring your whole self to work, and for you and everyone else to feel accepted and valued. Equal opportunities for everyone Equinor is an equal-opportunity employer. We make all employment decisions, which include hiring, promotion, transfer, demotion, termination, and training, without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, marital status, parental status, veteran status, or any other protected status. As part of this commitment, reasonable adjustments will be made during the recruitment process for candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions. If you have any specific requirements, please clarify this in your application and our team will be in contact to see how we can support your needs. We also believe everyone should be paid fairly and consistently for their contribution to our collective success. To ensure fairness and transparency, positions at Equinor are evaluated using our global job architecture based on the position's responsibilities, complexity, and impact, and regularly reviewed to ensure consistency and alignment across the organisation. Important notes about the application process We expect you to openly offer all relevant information about yourself during the recruitment process. Background checks are performed on all final candidates, and all permanent and temporary hires will be screened using relevant sanctions lists to ensure compliance with sanctions laws. When applying for a job in Norway you will be asked for information on affiliation to high-risk countries for a security assessment. About Equinor Equinor is an international energy company headquartered in Norway, energising the lives of 170 million people worldwide. Our ambition is to be a leading company in the energy transition and achieve net zero by 2050. Our task is enormous: supplying the world with the energy it needs, while lowering emissions to the atmosphere. To achieve it, we are looking for like-minded people to join our team of 25,000 colleagues working in more than 20 countries. We're up for the challenge. Are you? Equinor is an international energy company headquartered in Norway, energising the lives of 170 million people worldwide. Our ambition is to be a leading company in the energy transition and achieve net zero by 2050. Our task is enormous: supplying the world with the energy it needs, while lowering emissions to the atmosphere. To achieve it, we are looking for like-minded people to join our team of 25,000 colleagues working in more than 20 countries. We're up for the challenge. Are you?