AI Deployment Strategist - Houston

About Fundamental

Fundamental is an AI research lab pioneering the future of enterprise decision-making. Our flagship model, NEXUS is the world's most powerful Large Tabular Model (LTM) - purpose-built for the structured records that contain trillions of dollars in business value. With $275m in funding from leading investors and trusted by Fortune 100 companies, Fundamental is giving businesses the Power to Predict.

At Fundamental, you'll work on unprecedented technical challenges in foundation model development and build technology that transforms how the world's largest companies make decisions. This is your opportunity to be part of a category-defining company from the ground-up. Join the team defining the future of enterprise AI.

About the role

The AI Deployment Strategist owns the AI strategy for one of Fundamental's most strategic accounts. You are the single person accountable for how NEXUS grows inside that enterprise: which business problems it solves next, which executives sponsor it, how value is measured and communicated, and how a first deployment becomes a multi-year, multi-business-unit program.

Where a Solutions Architect owns the technical win, you own the commercial and strategic one. You will operate as the customer's trusted advisor on applied AI, sitting with senior business leaders to map where prediction changes decisions in their P&L, building the case for each new use case, and orchestrating Fundamental's Solutions Architects, Forward Deployed Engineers, Research, and leadership team to deliver against that roadmap. Expansion of the account is your primary measure of success.

This role is based in Houston, embedded with an anchor customer in oil and gas, with regular time on site and in our San Francisco office. You need to already speak the language of the industry: how an operator plans capital, runs its assets, trades its production, and makes decisions across upstream, midstream, and corporate functions. The role suits someone who has spent years advising energy companies on strategy and operations, wants to move from recommending to owning outcomes, and is comfortable being the face of an early-stage company inside a Fortune 100 organization.

Key responsibilities

• Own the account AI strategy: build and maintain a multi-year roadmap of NEXUS use cases across the customer's business units, prioritized by business value, feasibility, and executive appetite

• Drive expansion: identify, qualify, and shape new opportunities inside the account, from first conversation through business case, budget, and commercial agreement, working hand in hand with Sales and Fundamental's leadership team

• Build and run the executive relationship map: cultivate sponsors at VP and C-level, run steering committees and quarterly business reviews, and turn deployed use cases into internal champions and reference stories

• Quantify and communicate value: define the business KPIs for each deployment before it starts, track realized impact against them, and translate model performance into language a CFO acts on

• Orchestrate delivery: set priorities for the Solutions Architects and Forward Deployed Engineers assigned to the account, remove organizational blockers across IT, data governance, procurement, and business lines, and keep every workstream tied to the strategic roadmap

• Structure the account like a portfolio: run discovery workshops with functional leaders (production operations, drilling and completions, supply chain, finance and planning, commercial and trading, HSE), map decision points to prediction problems, and sequence bets to compound trust and value

• Be the voice of the customer inside Fundamental: bring field patterns, competitive intelligence, and unmet needs to Product, Research, and the executive team to shape roadmap and go-to-market

• Codify the expansion playbook: turn what works in this account into repeatable frameworks, business case templates, and executive narratives that the wider Applied AI team can reuse across strategic accounts

• Travel as needed between customer sites, Houston, and San Francisco

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Business, Economics, Finance, Engineering, or a related field; MBA or equivalent is a plus

• 5+ years of experience in the oil and gas industry, either in strategy consulting (MBB or equivalent) serving energy clients, in corporate strategy or operations at an operator or oilfield services company, or in a strategic account role selling enterprise technology into oil and gas

• Working knowledge of how an oil and gas company runs: upstream and midstream operations, capital allocation and portfolio planning, production and cost forecasting, commodity markets, and the organizational structure of a major or large independent

• Track record of expanding an engagement or account: turning a single project into a broader program by finding new problems, building the business case, and securing executive sponsorship and budget

• Executive presence and structured communication: comfortable leading a room of senior leaders, writing a crisp one-page recommendation, and defending a value model line by line

• Strong commercial and financial acumen: able to build a business case, model ROI, and navigate enterprise procurement and budget cycles

• Enough technical fluency to be credible with data and ML teams: you understand what a prediction problem is, what data it needs, and how to judge whether a use case is feasible, even if you don't write the code

• An existing network of senior relationships in Houston's energy ecosystem is a strong plus

• Ownership mentality: you want to be measured on outcomes for the account, not on deliverables, and you are energized rather than daunted by ambiguity

• Humble, team-oriented attitude with a bias toward action and doing what is necessary to help the broader team win

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with salary and equity

• Comprehensive health coverage for you and your dependents, including medical, dental, vision, and 401K

• Paid parental leave for all new parents, inclusive of adoptive and surrogate journeys

• Relocation support for employees moving to join the team in one of our office locations

• A mission-driven, low-ego culture that values diversity of thought, ownership, and bias toward action