Senior AI & Innovation Specialist

MISO•Carmel, IN

3d•Onsite

About The Position

We’re looking for a Senior AI & Innovation Specialist to help shape what’s next. In this role, you will identify, evaluate, and rapidly prototype emerging technologies with the potential to transform how we operate and deliver value. You are AI-forward, naturally curious about the rapidly evolving technology landscape, and comfortable leveraging modern AI tools to accelerate research, experimentation, and solution development. Blending strong technical depth with an innovation mindset, you will take ideas from early signals and trends through hands-on experimentation, working side-by-side with developers, data scientists, and business leaders to turn possibilities into practical, high-impact solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Analytics, Data Science, or a related field.
5+ years in innovation, AI prototyping, product management, or emerging technology roles.
Strong technical credibility working with engineering and data science teams and influencing non-technical stakeholders.
Demonstrated experience building prototypes or leading experiments that informed product or strategy decisions.
Proficiency with AI tools (Claude, Cursor, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot), including hands-on prototyping.
Experience with Python and GitHub workflows.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Certifications such as Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102), PMI-ACP, CSM, or design thinking credentials.

Responsibilities

Identify and evaluate emerging technologies through analysis of industry trends, research, startup ecosystems, and market signals.
Translate technology signals into actionable business use cases and prioritized innovation opportunities.
Act as a technical thought partner to leadership, shaping innovation priorities and investment decisions.
Design and refine structured processes for trendspotting, evaluation, and rapid experimentation.
Provide clear recommendations to adopt, monitor, defer, or eliminate technologies based on evidence.
Leverage AI tools (Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) to gather requirements and generate live prototypes in real time.
Conduct hands-on testing of emerging AI technologies to validate their capabilities prior to further development.
Apply rapid prototyping principles to accelerate concept-to-prototype cycles.
Iterate prototypes with customers to refine concepts and validate business value.
Prioritize and maintain an innovation backlog of use cases, experiments, and hypotheses.
Navigate organizational governance and policies to support efficient experimentation with new technologies.