Dev Ops Lead - Virtual Assistant and Automation

Our purpose is to deliver energy to the world, today and tomorrow. For over 100 years, bp has focused on discovering, developing, and producing oil and gas in the nations where we operate. We are one of the few companies globally that can provide governments and customers with an integrated energy offering. Delivering our strategy sustainably is fundamental to achieving our ambition to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner., * Lead the technical design, development and deployment of enterprise AI-enabled solutions aligned to People & Culture priorities

• Own service integrity, operational excellence, and governance across AI and digital people platforms
• Handle and partner with external vendors / configuration centres to deliver scalable, compliant solutions globally
• Act as a link between engineering, product, data science ensuring solutions move beyond prototypes into sustainable production

AI & Engineering Leadership

• Design, develop and maintainproduction-grade AI applications and servicesusing modern engineering practices (cloud-native design, CI/CD, testing, observability).
• Define and implementreusable AI platforms and capabilities(e.g. conversational assistants, AI search, unstructured data processing, GenAI solutions).
• Leadarchitectural decisions, ensuring responsible AI, explain ability, security, and operational robustness are embedded by design.
• Evaluate and integrateLLMs, vector databases, RAG patterns, agent-based frameworks, and AI APIsinto enterprise-ready solutions.
• Championautomation across the AI lifecyclefrom data ingestion to deployment and run.

Service, Delivery & Governance Ownership

• Be thepoint of accountability for system and solution integrity, ensuring incidents, risks and issues are led clearly and effectively.
• Define and maintainservice catalogues, clarifying scope, ownership, and delivery expectations.
• Ensure solutions meetbp standards, compliance requirements (incl. SoX), and global consistency needs.
• Chair regulargovernance, operational risk, and retrospective sessionswith partners and vendors.
• Ensure smoothtransition of new solutions, enhancements, and AI capabilitiesinto run-state operations.

Vendor & Partner Management

• Lead external vendors / configuration centres, ensuring capacity, capability, and delivery quality align with demand.
• Act as a key partner to Global Solution Owners, P&C leadership, technology teams, and business customers.
• Embed agile ways of working and continuous improvement practices across delivery teams.
• Translate complex technical and AI concepts into clear business insights and outcomes

Inspiring change from incremental improvements through to transformations

• Support leadership in building a short & medium-term roadmap of technical change that supports the business and P&C strategies
• Leading a portfolio of change projects, ranging in size and complexity, in support of an agreed the roadmap
• Agree and handle annual budgets accordingly

Thought leadership in AI, VA and automation solutions

• Be a thought-leader in bp in the AI, VA and automation solutions through extensive external networking and continuous landscape analysis

Building partnerships

• Being a great partner with numerous internal senior leaders - primarily the respective members of the Core leadership team
• Securing alignment on priorities and leading their requirements / expectations on projects
• Building strategic relationships / partnerships with external partners where appropriate
• Assisting I&E in the operational oversight of our vendors / partners

Building a high-performing team

• Providetechnical leadership, coaching and mentorshipacross engineering, data science, and solution teams.
• Inspiring and motivating a permanent team, and third-party project resources, to deliver great results
• Develop asafe, inclusive, high-performance environmentwhere teams can innovate and deliver at pace.
• Establishing a team that find the optimal balance of WHAT they deliver and HOW they deliver
• Presents the highest level of professional individual contribution and imparts technical expertise to lower level team members;
• Advises and directs subordinates and project resources to help accomplish assignments using established guidelines, procedures and policies;
• Reviews and evaluates team members’ performance.

Actively working to develop capability in line with the P&C Capability Framework, with an equal blend of EQ, IQ and drive.

Technical Capability

• Confirmed experience in multiple organisational change management roles, including demonstrated skills in leadership alignment, partner identification and analysis
• Shown experience deliveringenterprise-scale systems and AI-enabled solutionsin production
• Strong programming skills (Python preferred; Java or similar acceptable)
• Solid experience withcloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP)and modern DevOps practices
• Experience integratingmachine learning / GenAI modelsinto real-world systems
• Experience withLLMs, RAG, vector search, conversational AI, or unstructured data pipelines
• Familiarity with AI tooling/frameworks (e.g. LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, Hugging Face, CrewAI)
• Experience leadingSaaS / cloud-based HR or enterprise platforms
• Skilled at using data and analytics to identify outcomes and improve decision making; e.g. process improvements and candidate experience improvements

Business Capability

• Strong partner management skills acrossbusiness, technology, and vendor
• Customer focus - all decisions clearly aligned to customer strategy.
• Drives value-adding solutions - deeply integrated to ultimately improve business performance and disrupt, where necessary. Consistent track record of improving/adding customer value and taking things to the next level
• Externally orientated - aware of protocol and actively shares with, and learns from others
• Ability to operate effectively inambiguous, fast-paced global environments

Leadership & EQ Capability

• Effective communication skills, flexible style able to deal with partners at all levels
• Strong influencing skills - able to gain acceptance to ideas from senior customers and comfortable in the space of challenge and difficult conversations
• Group mind-set - demonstrates a deep understanding of the value of, and ability to develop, high quality, trust-based relationships with colleagues across bp
• Is self-aware and skilled at handling impact on others
• Is actively aware of the morale of their team and works constructively to raise it
• Is politically astute and able to work successfully across organisational boundaries
• Acts with integrity; is an exemplar of living the LEs & V&Bs
• Consistent track record of successfully developing and inspiring others and engendering followership
• Cultural fluency - ability to operate successfully across cultural boundaries with sensitivity, * Project management experience using both Agile and Waterfall methodologies
• Sound understanding of trends in the relevant process / technology areas
• Experience working within a global organisation, including using social media style tools to support communications and engagement across time zones
• Advanced at working collaboratively with internal and external partners, Agility core practices, Agility core practices, API and platform design, Cloud Platforms, Collaboration, Communication, Configuration management and release, Continuous deployment and release, Creating a high performing team, Database Design, Digital Project Management, Documentation and knowledge sharing, Emerging technology monitoring, Facilitation, Information Security, Mentoring, Metrics definition and instrumentation, NoSql data modelling, Problem Solving, Relational Data Modelling, Risk Management, Scripting, Secure development, Service operations and resiliency, Software Design and Development {+ 7 more}

There are many aspects of our employees’ lives that are meaningful, so we offer benefits to enable your work to fit with your life. These benefits can include flexible working options, a generous paid parental leave policy, excellent retirement benefits, among others!