Applied AI Developer

Leatherman Tools•Portland, OR

About The Position

Build Practical AI That Powers the Work at Leatherman. At Leatherman, we believe the best tools solve real problems, perform reliably, and help people accomplish more. That same practical, hands-on mindset guides how we approach artificial intelligence. We are looking for an Applied AI Developer who can turn promising AI ideas into dependable software that teams across Leatherman can use every day. This role is for a builder who moves quickly, works closely with the business, and knows how to take an application from early experimentation to production. You will help shape how AI-enabled work gets built and delivered at Leatherman—creating rapid prototypes, scaling the strongest ideas, and improving the quality, observability, and maintainability of everything that ships.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field; or equivalent practical experience.
Minimum of three years of professional software engineering experience, with hands-on exposure to AI/ML or applied AI development.
Working experience with LLM-based applications, agent patterns, retrieval-augmented generation, or AI-integrated workflows.
Comfortable with cloud platforms, Microsoft Azure preferred, as well as MCP, APIs, and integration architectures.
Solid full-stack development skills with the ability to ship production-grade software.
Self-directed and capable of progressing work with light technical supervision.
Excellent communication and teamwork skills, including experience working with business sponsors.

Nice To Haves

Experience in manufacturing, consumer products, or enterprise software is a plus.

Responsibilities

Builds and ships software across the full spectrum of AI-enabled work at Leatherman.
Takes AI workflow solutions from the end-to-end transformation pipeline into production.
Stands up rapid MVPs to test new ideas in days, not quarters.
Scales up the high-profile applications that emerge from across the organization, turning the most useful ideas and experiments into production tools the business depends on.
Works hands-on with functional teams and the broader vibecoding community, using the AI platforms, architectural standards, and reusable components established by the Applied AI team.
Keeps delivery velocity high while raising the floor on quality, observability, and maintainability across everything that ships.
Build, test, and deploy the AI workflows that come out of the company’s transformation pipeline.
Stand up rapid MVPs and prototype applications to test new ideas inside a single sprint.
Take high-profile vibecoded applications that emerge from across the organization and bring them to production quality.
Turn business needs into working software using Leatherman’s AI platform, MCP integrations, and standard tooling.
Iterate quickly: ship early, gather user feedback, and refine in production.
Keep AI workflows running well in production: monitor performance, watch for problems, and respond when something goes wrong.
Apply the governance standards set by the AI Governance Lead; keep code, documentation, and testing to the team’s quality bar.
Integrate AI workflows with Leatherman’s enterprise systems via MCP and APIM.
Use reusable components and patterns from the platform library, and contribute new ones as the work surfaces them.
Run SaaS build-feasibility reviews—evaluate whether incoming SaaS contracts could be built internally on the AI platform or with AI coding tools.
Document findings, effort estimates, and how well the work fits the platform for each review.
Partner with the AI Platform Lead on the final recommendation to leadership.
Stay current on the AI vendor landscape; flag tools worth evaluating and partners worth exploring.
Support broader AI Lab and vibecoding community efforts as needed.
Keep informed and ahead of AI development practices and emerging technologies.
Provide backup technical support to the AI Platform Lead as needed.