Lead AI Engineer

Daimler Truck North America•Portland, OR

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead AI Engineer is responsible for end-to-end delivery, adoption, and value realization of AI-enabled solutions across Procurement and Supply Chain. The role provides technical leadership, delivery oversight, people leadership, and strategic direction to ensure AI applications are designed, developed, deployed, operated, and adopted successfully. The lead owns technical execution and business outcomes while leading a cross-functional team of AI Engineers, Data Engineers, and business stakeholders. The position combines technical expertise, product ownership, stakeholder management, and people leadership to deliver scalable AI and data solutions with measurable business value. It is based in Portland, Oregon, and follows a hybrid schedule of four days per week in the office and one day remote. Relocation assistance is not available.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics, Supply Chain, or a related field.
At least 1 year of group leader, project lead, or mentoring experience.
At least 2 years of experience in one or more of AI Engineering, Data Engineering, Software Development, Supply Chain Management, Procurement, Logistics, or Advanced Analytics.
Strong programming skills in one or more of Python, Java, C++, TypeScript/JavaScript, or SQL.
Experience building and deploying AI, machine learning, or LLM-based solutions.
Understanding of prompt engineering, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, model evaluation, machine learning fundamentals, data pipelines, API development, and cloud and platform architectures.
Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
Ability to translate business needs into technical solutions.
Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
Ability to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical teams.
Comfort working in a fast-paced, highly iterative environment.
Experience applying Lean methodologies and continuous improvement principles.
Ability to work in or relocate to Portland, Oregon; relocation assistance is not available.
Applicants must be legally authorized to work permanently in the United States at the time of application, except current Daimler Truck North America employees working under an existing U.S. Daimler Truck North America visa may be considered for visa sponsorship.
Final candidates must successfully complete a criminal background check and may be required to successfully complete a pre-employment drug screen.

Nice To Haves

An advanced degree.
Experience with Palantir Foundry or similar enterprise data and AI platforms.
Working knowledge of supply chain, material planning, logistics, or procurement.

Responsibilities

Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain AI-enabled applications within Palantir Foundry and associated AI platforms.
Work with business stakeholders to identify, evaluate, and prioritize use cases.
Develop solutions using LLMs, AI agents, machine learning, and workflow automation.
Participate in rapid, iterative development cycles and engineer scalable, reusable solutions with global deployment potential.
Define and advise on ontology design, object models, and schema architecture.
Identify, ingest, clean, transform, and integrate enterprise and external data sources; develop data pipelines and connectivity frameworks.
Design data architectures that support interoperability, discoverability, and future use cases.
Collaborate with IT on security, permissions, governance, and system integration requirements.
Design and support infrastructure architecture for AI and data applications; develop APIs, integrations, and platform connectivity solutions.
Support engineering standards, scalability, performance optimization, and deployment practices, and evaluate emerging AI technologies and tools.
Provide operational support for deployed AI applications; monitor performance, reliability, and adoption metrics.
Accept technical incident escalations, troubleshoot root causes, and coordinate with IT Service Management and platform support teams.
Apply Lean principles and value-stream thinking to identify inefficiencies and improve business processes through automation, AI agents, predictive analytics, and intelligent workflows.
Promote AI literacy and digital transformation across Procurement and Supply teams through training, demonstrations, workshops, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
Mentor super users, champions, and citizen developers; support change management and adoption of deployed solutions.
Foster collaboration with the Palantir ecosystem and broader AI community.
Contribute technical expertise to governance reviews and architectural decisions; support use-case evaluation and prioritization.
Ensure compliance with enterprise standards, security requirements, and AI governance frameworks.
Provide technical assessments, effort estimates, and implementation recommendations to leadership and steering committees.

Benefits

Annual bonus program.
401(k) company contribution with company match up to 6%, plus non-elective company contribution of 3–7% depending on age.
Starting at four weeks of paid vacation.
13 or more calendar holidays.
Eight weeks of paid parental leave.
Employee assistance program.
Comprehensive healthcare plans.
Wellness programs.
Onsite fitness at some locations.
Tuition assistance.
Paid volunteer time off.
Short-term and long-term disability plans.