AI Engineer at Wolverine World Wide in Rockford, IL

AI Engineer Location: Rockford, MI Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (NYSE:WWW) is one of the world’s leading designers, marketers, and licensors of footwear and apparel; It’s global footprint spans 170 countries and territories. The Company’s portfolio includes Merrell®, Saucony®, Sweaty Betty®, Hush Puppies®, Wolverine®, Chaco®, Bates®, HYTEST®, and Stride Rite®. The Company is also the global footwear licensee of brands Cat® and Harley-Davidson®. Wolverine Worldwide is driven by a Vision to Make. Every Day. Better. for its consumers, partners, communities, and shareholders. In 2025, the Company was recognized by Footwear News as Company of the Year, by Forbes as one of America’s Dream Employers, America’s Best Employers for Women, and America’s Best Employers for Company Culture, and by Inspiring Workplaces as one of the Most Inspiring Workplaces Globally. Wolverine Worldwide is a Certified™ Great Place To Work®. The AI Engineer will be contributing to designing, implementing, governing, and scaling AI and agentic solutions across Wolverine Worldwide. This role partners closely with key stakeholders in Data & Analytics, IT, Security, and Business to drive AI initiatives in secure, governed, reusable, and value-driven ways. The AI Engineer plays a critical role in delivering the AI strategy, balancing innovation with governance, managing tool and agent sprawl, and enabling safe adoption of AI through standards, training, and platform enablement. Primary Duties: Supports implementation and operationalization AI review policies, standards, and procedures to ensure AI solutions deliver sustained business value. Contributes to the establishment and evolution of Technical Data & AI Governance capability, including: Architectural standards Model and agent lifecycle management Monitoring, evaluation, and refinement of AI solutions Participates in establishing and implementing guardrails to manage agent sprawl, ensuring AI agents are discoverable, maintainable, and appropriately governed. Supports ownership and execution of AI Council priorities, including intake, evaluation, and sequencing of AI initiatives. Designs, builds, and / or maintains of some critical AI-powered applications and Co-Pilot based agents and agentic AI solutions Partners effectively with business teams and other stakeholders to translate use cases into scalable AI solutions Provides technical guidance and oversight for AI solutions Ensures alignment of AI solutions with enterprise architecture, security, privacy, and compliance requirements Supports enterprise-wide AI upskilling efforts including: Contributing to formulating and organizing vendor led training AI Office-hours and Tech deep dive sessions Hands-on demonstration and walkthroughs for AI solutions Contributes to and help shape the AI Community of Excellence (CoE) to share best practices, patterns, and reusable components Enables citizen development of Copilot agents by: Providing technical guidance on scaling Defining governance models that allow safe, decentralized innovation Supporting review and implementation of high-value citizen-built solutions Works cross-functionally with Data Engineering, Analytics, Security, Infrastructure, and Application teams Evaluates emerging AI technologies, tools, and frameworks and recommend adoption where appropriate Authors and maintain technical documentation for AI architectures, standards, and solutions Participate in change management and operational readiness activities related to AI deployments Performs duties consistent with the company’s AAP/EEO goals and policies. Performs other duties as required/assigned by manager. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Required: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field, or equivalent practical experience. 4+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML roles. Hands-on experience building or integrating AI-driven solutions, including: LLM-based applications AI agents or copilots API-driven AI services Strong understanding of AI governance concepts, including risk, privacy, security, and lifecycle management. Experience working in a cloud-based ecosystem (Azure preferred). Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills. Ability to collaborate effectively across technical and non-technical teams. Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships at all levels of the organization Nice to Have: Deep experience with: Machine learning or deep learning frameworks Prompt engineering and agent orchestration MLOps / AIOps Background in data engineering or architecture, including data pipelines, modeling, and analytics platforms. Experience supporting citizen development or low-code/no-code AI solutions. Familiarity with Microsoft Copilot, Fabric, Azure AI services, or similar platforms. Prior experience contributing to AI standards, governance bodies, or centers of excellence. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Required: Normal office environment. Wolverine Worldwide has a flexible, hybrid work schedule, with three days in office and two days remote. #LI-MM1 The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed and are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills which may be required. Wolverine Worldwide, Inc. is committed to creating a company that is as diverse as our consumers. We value the differences in one another and believe our differences make us stronger. Our diverse and inclusive corporate culture starts with the recruitment process. We are committed to being an equal opportunity employer. We aim to create equal opportunities for our associates, customers, and suppliers regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected characteristic.